From kitchen table to £21m turnover in 10 years

Plymouth-based company Sphere Solutions Ltd may not be a household name, but that looks all set to change in the next few months.

Finally coming out of the shadows, founders James Hughes and James Parsons organised a lavish 24-hour celebration in The Vale Resort (Hensol) for every single member of staff to mark Sphere’s tenth birthday.

Started by Hughes in 2005, Sphere Solutions is a recruitment services company which specialises in construction and civil engineering sectors. From humble beginnings in Hughes’ kitchen, Sphere has grown to 40 staff in Cardiff, Bristol and Plymouth and has a turnover in excess of £21million.

Many of its 2,760 clients are large, well known organisations such as Laing O’Rourke, BAM and Kier Construction. Sphere’s services were instrumental in the completion of massive projects such as Plymouth’s Life Centre and Nottingham’s TRAM Rail Project. More recently, Sphere has had a hand in the construction of the South Devon Link Road and is well placed to make a valuable contribution to the Swansea Tidal lagoon project.

“It’s been a fantastic ten years,” says Hughes. “We’ve grown to become one of the UK’s first port of calls for both construction and infrastructure companies who’re searching for the right candidate, and for the candidates themselves. We have almost 30,000 vetted candidates and contractors on our database, and we speak to the hiring managers of 1,000 companies within the construction industry every week.”

Asked what the key to Sphere’s success is, he replies: “Expertise, integrity and dedication. All our recruitment consultants are trained in and absorb those three fundamental Sphere ‘brand values’ – they’re the rules we live and work by. A company can have great expertise in its field, but if its people don’t have integrity and aren’t dedicated, it’s on a difficult path.”

Judging by the feedback Sphere gets, the company’s ethos and drive to always do the best for their clients is obviously working. Testimonials on Sphere’s website range from a Contract Site Manager stating: "Sphere has the best rate of pay and by far the best service in the industry”, to a Kier Construction director commenting: “"Sphere Solutions is our recruitment provider of choice. Their culture of honesty, openness and confidentiality coupled with strong industry knowledge gives us confidence that we will secure the most suitable candidate.”

“Those testimonials show in black and white what a great service our team gives,” says Hughes. “We continually invest in our people and systems, and as a result, our profit has grown by over 470% in ten years. We turned-over in excess of £21million this last year [April 2014 to April 2015], and we look set to double that in the next five.”

No wonder then that Hughes and Parsons treated everyone in their Sphere ‘family’ to a lavish Spa and Activity day in The Vale. Every single member of staff was given a ‘Thank You’ goody bag filled with luxury gifts such as John Lewis vouchers and wine; plus key achievers were presented with prizes and vintage champagne.

Parsons sums up: “The past ten years have been great, and I think it’s high time we acknowledged that, and let everyone know how well we’re doing.”

More information about Sphere Solutions and its services is available from www.spheresolutions.co.uk / enquiries@spheresolutions.co.uk / 01752 421888