Dovetail & Slate

Dovetail & Slate is a specialist recruitment agency dedicated to placing exceptional people with organisations that serve communities across the UK. The agency focuses on connecting professionals with roles in schools, colleges, healthcare trusts, councils and housing associations, understanding that public service matters. With 65+ specialist consultants and a commitment to rigorous vetting combined with human-centred support, Dovetail & Slate goes beyond matching keywords on job descriptions to ensure values alignment and genuine cultural fit. The agency promises thorough enhanced DBS checks, professional references, qualification verification and safeguarding compliance for every candidate, whilst supporting professionals through the process with empathy and clarity.

Dovetail & Slate specialises across a comprehensive range of public sector recruitment sectors. The agency recruits for primary and secondary education, placing early years teachers through to subject specialists who bring warmth and passion into classrooms. In further and higher education, the team provides lecturers, assessors and support staff across vocational trades, BTECs and functional skills programmes. The agency also specialises in special educational needs and student support, prison education, independent schools, executive search for transformational leaders, healthcare and NHS trusts, local government councils, national government including Whitehall policy teams and defence specialists, government projects focused on digital transformation and infrastructure delivery, housing and social care providers, and the charity and third sector.

With headquarters in Bristol and offices across the UK in Manchester, Leeds and London, Dovetail & Slate combines local expertise with national reach. The agency's consultants know the local public sector landscape inside out, building genuine partnerships with clients rather than passing them between departments. Clients and candidates choose Dovetail & Slate because the team has lived and breathed public service, many having worked in the very sectors they recruit for. This firsthand experience means the agency understands what these roles truly demand, recognises cultural fit and knows what makes someone thrive in public service, not just survive it.