Acceptable use and advert rules

These rules keep the board worth reading. They apply to every advert, profile, message and file on this site. Breaking them means the content comes down, and for a paid advert, without a refund.

The advertiser is responsible for the advert

We are a publisher, not the author. Everything in an advert is written by the advertiser, published on their instruction and at their own risk. By posting, an advertiser confirms the vacancy is genuine, that they are authorised to advertise it, and that they take full responsibility for its content, including any claim that arises from it. We check adverts and we take them down, but no check by us moves that responsibility.

The wording our software refuses on an advert, the section of the Equality Act 2010 behind each one and what to write instead, is published in full on advert wording.

Never, under any circumstances

These end an advert immediately, without notice and without a refund, and can end the account with it:

• Hate. Anything that abuses, degrades or incites hatred against people because of race, colour, nationality, ethnic origin, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, disability, age, marriage or civil partnership, or pregnancy and maternity.
• Harassment, threats and intimidation. Content that bullies, threatens, stalks or intimidates any person, or that targets an individual.
• Obscenity. Sexual, pornographic, grossly offensive or gratuitously violent content, and adult services of any kind.
• Discrimination. Wording that excludes people on a protected characteristic, as set out in our equality policy. That includes age ranges, gendered job titles and requirements that are not genuinely needed for the job.
• Extremism and violence. Anything that promotes terrorism, violent extremism or violence against anybody.
• Charging a work seeker. Any fee, deposit, subscription, training charge or equipment cost demanded of an applicant, refundable or not.
• Exploitation. Anything suggesting forced labour, trafficking, unlawful deductions, or work below the National Minimum Wage.
• Other people's data. Publishing somebody's personal details, or a photograph of a person, without their permission.
• Anything unlawful. If it would be a crime to do it, it cannot be advertised here.

Where content is illegal, we preserve the record and report it: recruitment fraud to Action Fraud, labour exploitation to the Fair Work Agency, which took over that work from the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority on 7 April 2026, hate crime and threats to the police, and data misuse to the Information Commissioner's Office. We cooperate fully with any investigation.

Every advert must

• Be a genuine, currently available vacancy that you or a named client are recruiting for.
• Name the employer, or say clearly that it is a recruitment business advertising on behalf of a client.
• State the location honestly, including whether it is remote, hybrid or on site.
• State pay as a figure or a realistic range. Not a preference and not a style note: an advert with no pay figure cannot be published here. The form refuses it, the API refuses it and a feed import skips it. "Competitive", "negotiable", "DOE" and "attractive salary" are the same word, and the answer to all of them is the same.
• Describe the role, the hours and what is required, in plain English.

If you are not naming the client

Advertising a role without naming the end employer is legitimate and there are real reasons for it: somebody is being replaced who has not been told, or a company does not want its competitors to know it is hiring. We allow it, on four conditions.

• You are named. Your own company name and the fact that you are a recruitment agency or employment business go on the advert. That is regulation 27 of the Conduct Regulations and it is not optional. An advert with no employer and no agency on it is an advert from nobody.
• The pay is still stated. Anonymity is not a way round the pay rule. It is the most common way it gets tried, and it does not work here.
• You hold the client's written authority and the job exists today. Advertising a role you have not been instructed on, in order to collect CVs, is the practice regulation 27 exists to stop.
• The candidate learns the name before they are asked to attend anything. Not after an interview is arranged and not on the day. Somebody is entitled to know whose door they are walking through, and to say no once they know without that counting against them.

An advert like this is labelled on the page, so nobody thinks they are applying direct. It appears in the company directory under the agency's name rather than the client's, and it does not create an employer page for a company that never agreed to have one.

Never allowed

• Charging a candidate to apply, to be considered, for training, for equipment, for a DBS check or for a uniform, before employment starts. This is prohibited by the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003 and we will report it.
• Adverts that are actually a pitch for a course, a franchise, a multi level marketing scheme, an investment, or self employment dressed up as a job without saying so.
• Discriminatory wording or requirements that breach the Equality Act 2010. See the equality policy.
• Collecting bank details, passport copies or national insurance numbers through an advert or before an offer.
• Roles that are unlawful, unsafe, adult in nature, or that involve working without the legal right to work in the UK.
• Duplicate adverts for the same role posted to gain more space on the board.
• Keyword stuffing: repeating a job title or padding the advert with words to influence where it appears in search.
• Contact details or links inserted to divert applicants away from the platform for the purpose of avoiding fees.
• Uploading malware, or any file you are not entitled to share.

Handling the applications you receive

• Use an application only to consider that person for the job they applied to.
• No marketing, no newsletters, no adding applicants to a mailing list.
• No reselling or sharing candidate data outside your organisation, group companies included.
• Stop contacting a candidate who asks you to stop, and tell us if you receive such a request.

Technical rules

Do not attempt to gain unauthorised access to any part of the site, probe or scan it, use automated tools to harvest data, place excessive load on it, or interfere with other users. We log access and will cooperate fully with the police where the Computer Misuse Act 1990 is engaged.

Reporting something

See something? Report it. Use the report an advert form. It takes thirty seconds, you can do it anonymously, and it goes to a person rather than a queue. We read reports the same working day and take adverts down first when they plainly break these rules. You can also email hello@hiringuk.co.uk with the advert reference. We review reports the same working day, and we would rather look at ten fair adverts than leave one bad one up.