General public · Professional Panel · Seldom-heard communities
Running your own research? We'll just find the people.
You have the study designed, the discussion guide written, and someone to moderate. What you don't have is a fast, ethical way to find the right participants. That's the part we do on its own: we find, screen, schedule and pay people from The Collective, our Professional Panel, or a seldom-heard community, then hand them over for you to run your fieldwork.
UK-based • GDPR compliant • ICO registered • Participants paid fairly
Want to meet the panel itself first? Explore The Collective →
When you need people, not a study
Most of our work is end to end: we design the study, recruit, moderate, analyse, and report. But a good number of the teams who come to us already have all of that in place. An agency with a signed brief and their own moderators. An in-house researcher who knows exactly what they want to ask. A university team with ethics approval and a discussion guide, just no route to real participants.
For all of them, recruitment is the actual blocker, not the research design. So we sell it separately: you tell us who you need and how many, we find them, verify they match your screener, schedule them into your calendar, and administer their incentive or fee. You run the session. That's the whole service.
If you would rather we ran the fieldwork too, or the whole study, that's available as well — see the pricing below.
Recruit from three pools
Every brief we take fits one of these, or a mix of two.
The Collective
Our general public panel. People from all walks of UK life, all ages, all regions, fairly paid and ethically recruited, for surveys, interviews, focus groups and usability testing.
Explore The CollectiveThe Professional Panel
Public health and policy leads, clinicians and health professionals, NHS leadership, and wider public sector, social care and VCSE professionals, screened by role and seniority.
Explore professional recruitmentSeldom-heard communities
Carers, older adults, disabled people, rural and digitally excluded populations, reached through community partners when a panel alone can't get there.
Explore inclusive recruitmentWhat we can recruit for
Broadly, whatever your study needs. These are the most common.
Surveys
Respondents matched to a screener, at whatever sample size a survey needs.
PPIE & co-design
Patients, carers and the public for involvement panels and co-design workshops.
Focus groups
Six to ten matching participants, scheduled together, with reserves held against no-shows.
Usability testing
Real users of your product, not just willing volunteers, for moderated or unmoderated sessions.
1:1 interviews
In-depth conversations recruited to an exact screener, remote or in person.
Diary studies
Participants recruited and supported through a multi-week logging period, with attrition managed by us.
How it works
Feasibility first, so you know the sample exists before you commit budget.
Send your screener
Who you need, how many, and your fieldwork window. Your existing screener is fine as it is; we'll map it onto the right pool.
Feasibility check
We tell you honestly whether we already hold matching people, or need to source them, and what that means for timing.
Recruit and screen
We invite, screen, confirm, and hold a reserve list against drop-out, so your session list doesn't fall short on the day.
Schedule and hand over
Confirmed participants land in your calendar with reminders sent and their fee or incentive administered by us. You run the session.
Straightforward profiles from The Collective typically take one to two weeks. Specialist or seldom-heard profiles usually need three to six weeks. See how fast you can actually recruit research participants.
Participant recruitment pricing
Buy the sample on its own, or the whole study. Priced separately so you only pay for what you need.
Sample only
Recruitment
£750 project setup plus £125 per participant recruited from The Collective, plus participant incentives at cost. Six participants is £1,500; twenty is £3,250. We find, screen, schedule and pay them. You run your own fieldwork.
- Feasibility check before you commit
- Screening against your own criteria
- Scheduling into your calendar, with reminders
- Incentives administered and paid
- Reserve list held against drop-out
Recruit & moderate
Recruit & Run
We recruit and run the sessions too, for teams who want participants found but don't have the capacity to moderate as well.
- Everything in recruitment, for 4 to 5 participants
- Discussion guide developed with you
- Moderated sessions, recordings and transcripts
- Topline findings with verbatims
- Participant incentives included
End to end
Full Study
Design, recruitment, fieldwork, analysis and reporting, when you'd rather hand over the whole thing.
- Research design and sampling strategy
- Larger or multi-phase samples
- Mixed general public and professional samples
- Full thematic analysis and written report
- Stakeholder presentation
How recruitment is priced: £750 per project to set up the screener and matching, plus £125 for each participant recruited from The Collective. The setup is the same work whether you need six people or twenty, which is why it sits separately rather than being buried in a per-head rate. Six participants is £1,500; twenty is £3,250.
Participant incentives: Charged on top at cost, typically £25 to £75 depending on session length, paid as Amazon or Love2Shop vouchers promptly after the session. Longer commitments such as diary studies are priced individually.
Professional or clinical samples: Sourcing cost and participant fees are different for practitioners than for the general public, so those briefs are quoted from the model on professional participant recruitment: £1,500 setup plus £250 per participant, with professional fees from £75 to £350 an hour on top.
Seldom-heard communities: Where a brief needs carers, older adults, disabled people, or other communities standard panels miss, community outreach adds real cost and time. See inclusive research recruitment for how that's scoped and priced.
What adds cost: Very narrow briefs, turnarounds under two weeks, in-person sessions, and mixed general public and professional samples in one study. We flag all of this at feasibility, not at invoice.
If your study needs professional expertise
The Professional Panel is our practitioner arm of The Collective: working professionals who take part in a personal capacity, screened by field, role, organisation type and seniority rather than a broad "healthcare" tickbox. It's made up of four groups.
- Public health & health policy: policy officers, heads of policy, communications and behaviour change leads
- Clinical & health professions: GPs, consultants, nurses, midwives, pharmacists, AHPs, dentists, paramedics
- NHS leadership & governance: board members, NEDs, ICB and PCN leads, commissioning managers
- Wider public sector, social care & VCSE: local authority officers, social workers, charity and VCSE leads
Members are paid professional rates, from £75 to £350 an hour by seniority, because underpaying this audience does not save money; it changes who agrees to take part.
See professional recruitment pricingWho uses participant recruitment
Mostly teams who already have the study designed and just need the right people in it.
Common questions
How is this different from The Collective, the Professional Panel, and inclusive recruitment?
This page is the front door for buying recruitment on its own. The Collective is our general public panel, the Professional Panel is health and public sector practitioners, and inclusive recruitment is our route to seldom-heard communities through partner organisations. Whichever pool your brief needs, the ordering process and pricing model here is the same: tell us who you need, and we quote against the right pool.
How much does participant recruitment cost?
Recruitment only from the general public is £750 per project to set up, plus £125 per participant recruited, so six participants is £1,500 and twenty is £3,250. Participant incentives are charged on top at cost, typically £25 to £75 depending on session length, paid as Amazon or Love2Shop vouchers. Professional and clinical samples follow the pricing on our professional participant recruitment page, since sourcing cost is different for that audience. Recruitment with moderated fieldwork starts from £5,500, and a full study from £9,500.
What can you recruit for?
Surveys, interviews, focus groups, usability testing, diary studies, PPIE and co-design workshops, and professional or clinical validation sessions. If it involves talking to or observing real people, we can usually supply them. Tell us the method and the screener and we will confirm feasibility.
Do you moderate the sessions, or do we?
Either. Most teams that come to us for participant recruitment already have a researcher or moderator in house and just need the people found, screened, scheduled and paid. If you would rather we ran the fieldwork too, that is priced as a separate tier, and we can take the whole study end to end if needed.
How fast can you recruit participants?
Most briefs are scoped within one working day, and straightforward profiles from The Collective typically recruit within one to two weeks. Specialist or seldom-heard profiles usually need three to six weeks. See how fast you can actually recruit research participants for what determines the timeline.
Can one study mix general public and professional participants?
Yes. It is common to pair patients or the public with clinicians or service leads in the same study, for example a PPIE panel alongside a professional advisory group. We quote each pool separately, since the sourcing cost and participant fees differ, then bring the fieldwork together on one schedule.
We fully recognise the effort your team invested in recruitment, moderation, and analysis, and we genuinely appreciate the quality of the discussions and reporting.
- Usability problems in an insulin device surfaced before manufacturing locked anything in, with human factors evidence supporting the regulatory submission.
- An NHS patient portal team got a prioritised, evidenced list of adoption barriers, and the highest-leverage fix wasn't the one they expected.
- Patient involvement changed a trial's primary endpoint before the protocol was finalised, cited by the ethics committee as a model for evidencing PPIE.
Trusted PPI and PPIE delivery partner to the NIHR HealthTech Research Centre in Accelerated Surgical Care.
Send us who you need
Your screener, sample size and fieldwork window are enough to start. We will come back with a feasibility answer and a price.
Contact usWe usually respond within one working day.
Prefer to talk it through first?
Book a free 20-minute call. No obligation, no sales pitch. We'll tell you honestly whether research is worth it for your decision, and what it would cost.