For British and international companies building capability in Poland, the challenge is not simply finding more candidates. It is understanding the market before business-critical roles become urgent.
Poland has become one of Europe’s most important markets for business services, technology, finance, risk, operations and transformation.
For British companies already operating here, or considering expansion, the opportunity is clear. Poland offers a strong talent base, mature business-services locations, international operating experience, high-quality professionals and a growing reputation for higher-value work.
But the market has changed.
Many companies still enter the Polish talent market with an old assumption: that a strong brand, a reasonable salary and a well-written job description will be enough to attract the right people.
Sometimes that is true.
Increasingly, it is not.
When the process becomes difficult, the same explanations usually appear:
“We cannot find the right candidates.”
“The market is too shallow.”
“Salary expectations are too high.”
“The shortlist is not strong enough.”
“Candidates are not responding.”
“The role has been open for months.”
These are real frustrations. But in many cases, they are symptoms rather than the root cause.
Most companies do not have a hiring problem.
They have a market-intelligence problem.
The talent often exists. The harder question is whether the company knows where that talent sits, who currently employs it, what it would take to attract it, how the role compares with competing opportunities, and whether the proposition is strong enough to make people move.
That is a different conversation from recruitment.
It is a conversation about workforce intelligence, market access and capability planning.
Poland is no longer a simple cost-location story
For many years, Poland was viewed by international companies through a familiar lens: skilled people, competitive operating costs, strong universities, language capability and proximity to Western Europe.
Those strengths remain important. But they no longer tell the full story.
Poland’s business-services sector has moved significantly up the value chain. Centres that once focused mainly on transactional work are now delivering finance transformation, data analytics, regulatory change, cybersecurity, procurement excellence, HR operations, automation, AI adoption and regional leadership.
In other words, Poland is no longer just a delivery location.
It is increasingly a capability location.
This shift is visible across the wider Polish business-services market. ABSL’s latest sector commentary supports the argument that Poland’s business-services sector is moving from cost-led delivery towards higher-value, knowledge-intensive capability. At the same time, the European Commission’s 2026 Digital Decade reporting for Poland highlights ongoing pressure around business digitalisation, advanced technology adoption and ICT specialist availability.
For GBS, finance, risk, technology and transformation leaders, these are not abstract policy issues.
They affect hiring, workforce planning, delivery capacity and competitiveness.
If a company is building a basic processing team, it needs one type of workforce plan.
If it is building a regional finance capability, a technology hub, a risk centre of excellence, a transformation office or a data-led GBS function, it needs something very different.
It needs to understand capability, not just headcount.
More CVs do not solve a weak brief
When a role is difficult to fill, the usual response is to increase activity.
Post the advert again.
Ask for more CVs.
Brief another supplier.
Search more widely on LinkedIn.
Extend the deadline.
Adjust the job title.
Wait for the market to improve.
Sometimes this helps.
Often it does not.
More CVs do not fix an unrealistic salary band.
More CVs do not fix a role that combines three jobs into one.
More CVs do not fix a hiring process that takes six weeks when strong candidates can move in two.
More CVs do not fix an employer brand that is not yet known in the Polish market.
More CVs do not explain why competitors are winning the people you want.
When a search fails repeatedly, the question should not be only: “Why are there not enough candidates?”
The better question is: “What do we not yet understand about the market?”
The hidden market is often the most important market
The best candidates are rarely waiting on job boards.
They are already employed. They are delivering work for competitors. They are being retained. They may be open to a conversation, but they are unlikely to respond to generic outreach.
This is especially true in specialist areas such as finance transformation, risk, data, cybersecurity, AI, regulatory change, technology leadership, project delivery and senior GBS management.
The strongest candidates need a reason to engage.
They want to know what the role will really own. They want to understand the mandate. They want clarity on progression, decision-making, technology, culture, flexibility and leadership commitment to Poland.
A job description is not enough.
A company needs a credible talent proposition.
What will this person build?
What will they influence?
Why does the role matter?
Why is Poland important to the business?
Why should someone leave a good role to join this one?
If these questions are not answered clearly, the market often responds with silence.
The cost of poor market intelligence
Weak talent intelligence is expensive, but the cost is not always obvious at first.
It shows up when a role remains open for months.
It shows up when candidates decline because the compensation is not competitive.
It shows up when a senior hire joins and leaves quickly because the mandate was not what they expected.
It shows up when a new Polish operation struggles to build credibility because the first wave of hiring was rushed.
It shows up when an internal team spends weeks reviewing unsuitable applications.
It shows up when a transformation programme is delayed because the organisation underestimated how scarce the required skills are.
It also shows up in leadership time.
Senior people become involved too late, when the search has already lost momentum. Salary bands are reviewed after candidates have disengaged. Job descriptions are rewritten after the market has already rejected them.
By that point, the problem is no longer just recruitment.
It has become business risk.
Talent intelligence should come before recruitment
The best workforce decisions are made before a vacancy goes live.
Talent intelligence helps answer the questions that a job advert cannot answer.
How many people in Poland can realistically do this role?
Which cities offer the strongest talent pool?
Which companies currently employ this capability?
What compensation is realistic today?
Which requirements are essential and which are unnecessarily narrowing the market?
Is the role attractive enough to passive candidates?
How quickly will the best people move?
Which competitors are most relevant?
Should the role be permanent, interim, B2B, fractional or built internally?
Could part of the work be automated or redesigned?
These are not purely HR questions.
They are operating-model questions.
They affect budget, location strategy, transformation delivery, risk, retention and growth.
For British companies in Poland, this is particularly important because assumptions from the UK market do not always transfer neatly. Salary expectations, notice periods, employment preferences, local employer-brand awareness, hybrid-working norms and candidate behaviour can vary significantly.
Poland is not difficult.
But it is specific.
Companies that understand those specifics make better decisions.
AI makes workforce intelligence more important, not less
Artificial intelligence is changing recruitment, shared services and business operations. It can improve research, sourcing, screening, skills mapping and process efficiency.
But AI does not remove the need for judgement.
It cannot repair an unrealistic role.
It cannot create trust with a senior passive candidate.
It cannot make an underpriced opportunity attractive.
It cannot explain why a candidate should leave a stable role.
It cannot tell a board which capabilities should be built in Poland unless the strategic thinking has already been done.
Used well, AI can make talent intelligence sharper.
Used poorly, it simply makes weak hiring processes faster.
This is especially relevant in GBS and business services, where automation is already changing the shape of work. Some tasks will disappear. Some roles will be redesigned. Some skills will become more valuable. Some teams will need to move from process execution to analysis, advisory work and business partnering.
The question is not only: “Who should we hire?”
The better question is: “What capability are we trying to build?”
Hire, build, borrow or redesign?
Not every capability gap should automatically become an external hire.
Some roles should be hired from the market.
Some skills should be built internally.
Some needs are better covered through interim or B2B specialists.
Some leadership gaps can be addressed fractionally.
Some work should be redesigned before anyone is recruited.
Some activity should be automated.
This is the direction in which workforce planning is moving. The old model was based mainly on vacancies and job titles. The new model has to be based on capability.
For companies scaling in Poland, this shift is critical.
A finance role may now require data, automation and transformation exposure.
A technology role may require stakeholder management and business ownership.
A risk role may require systems understanding and regulatory judgement.
An HR role may require workforce analytics and change capability.
A GBS leadership role may require commercial influence, not just operational control.
The market is changing faster than many job descriptions.
That is why talent intelligence matters.
What British companies should ask before opening the next role
Before launching another difficult search in Poland, leadership teams should ask themselves ten practical questions:
Do we know whether this talent exists in the location we are targeting?
Do we know which employers currently hold this capability?
Do we know what candidates are really earning?
Do we understand what would make them move?
Is our role proposition strong enough?
Is our interview process fast enough?
Are we asking for a realistic combination of skills?
Should this role be hired externally or developed internally?
Do we know how our employer brand is perceived locally?
Do we understand how this hire supports the capability we want Poland to build?
If the answer to most of these questions is unclear, then the problem is not the shortlist.
The problem is market intelligence.
What this means for workforce planning
For many companies, the traditional hiring model is still reactive.
A vacancy appears.
A job description is approved.
A search begins.
CVs are reviewed.
Interviews take place.
Everyone hopes the market responds.
That model can work for some roles.
It is less effective when the requirement is specialist, senior, confidential, time-critical or capability-led.
A more strategic approach starts earlier.
It means understanding the market before committing to a hiring plan. It means testing whether the role is realistic. It means knowing who else is competing for the same people. It means understanding whether the capability should be hired externally, built internally, borrowed through flexible talent or redesigned altogether.
It also means supporting internal talent acquisition teams with better market insight, not simply expecting them to solve every specialist hiring problem through existing channels.
This is the shift from recruitment as a transaction to workforce intelligence as a business capability.
Final thought
Poland remains one of the most attractive markets in Europe for British and international companies building business services, technology, finance, risk and transformation capability.
But the market has matured.
The companies that succeed will not simply be those that ask for more candidates. They will be the companies that understand the market more deeply, plan earlier and treat talent as a strategic source of value.
Because most companies do not have a hiring problem.
They have a market-intelligence problem.
Once that problem is solved, the hiring conversation becomes much clearer.
Market context
Market context referred to in this article includes recent ABSL commentary on Poland’s business-services sector, the European Commission’s 2026 Digital Decade reporting for Poland, and wider GBS-sector research on digitalisation, automation, workforce transformation and skills pressure.
About Belvedere Recruitment
Belvedere Recruitment supports British and international companies building specialist capability across Poland and Central Europe.
We work across GBS, finance, risk, technology, transformation and project delivery, combining market intelligence, passive talent mapping, strategic workforce advisory and targeted search.
For organisations planning growth in Poland, struggling with difficult roles or reviewing their talent strategy, we would be pleased to share what we are seeing in the market.
