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TikTok reaches around 24.9 million adults in the UK, roughly 136 million in the US and 10.2 million in Australia. That’s somewhere between a third and two-fifths of the adult population in each of those markets. The audience sits mainly in early- to mid-career stages, and because the For You Page hands out reach based on interest rather than follower count, a brand-new account can get in front of thousands of people.
For recruitment, search and staffing businesses, the honest answer is that TikTok is a candidate channel, not a client one. There’s no sourced example of a recruitment business winning new client work through TikTok, and no verified UK, US, or Australia return-on-investment benchmark for the sector. The people who sign off recruitment spend aren’t concentrated on the platform.
So if you hire at volume for entry- to mid-level roles, it’s worth testing with a small, defined budget of around 300 to 500 pounds over a fortnight, measuring your own cost per lead rather than relying on anyone else’s numbers. If you’re targeting senior or executive people, put that time into LinkedIn, your email list, and direct outreach instead. This post covers the audience data, what the algorithm rewards in 2026, what a test costs in time and money, and four questions to help you decide either way.
What You Will Learn in This Post
- Who’s really on TikTok in the UK, the US and Australia, and what those numbers mean for the roles you fill
- Why the change of ownership in January 2026 removes the one objection that stopped a lot of recruiters from looking at the platform at all
- What the algorithm rewards now, and why a brand new account with no followers can still get real reach
- Why TikTok can get you candidates but there’s no evidence it will get you clients
- The difference between attracting candidates and winning clients, and why mixing the two up costs you money
- What a proper test costs in time and money, and four questions that’ll tell you whether to run one at all
I know what some of you are thinking.
TikTok is for dancing. It’s not for a serious recruitment business. My clients aren’t on there.
Some of you will be right about that.
And I want to say up front, you have my permission to walk away from this one. Not every channel is for every company, and part of my job is helping you say no with confidence rather than adding another thing to a list you’re already struggling to get through.
But it’s a fair question, so let’s answer it properly.
Here’s where I’ve landed after going through the research.
TikTok can get you candidates. I couldn’t find any evidence that it will get you clients.
That’s the short version. The rest of this post is why, and what you should do about it.
What Changed in 2026
Let me start with what’s shifted, because if you looked at TikTok a year or two ago and backed away, your reason might not apply anymore.
TikTok is a short-form video app owned by the Chinese technology company ByteDance. It launched internationally in September 2017.
In January 2026, its US operations were sold to a new, majority American-owned entity called TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, led by Oracle, Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi’s MGX. They hold 80.1 per cent between them, with ByteDance keeping 19.9 per cent. The deal closed on 22 and 23 January 2026.
Why does that matter to you?
Because for years, the objection I heard most about TikTok had nothing to do with the audience. It was the risk that the whole thing might disappear overnight in the US. Hard to build a plan on that.
That question has now been answered.
I’ll be straight with you, though. Some legal commentators, including at Harvard Law School, argue the data and influence questions haven’t been fully settled. So not every concern is gone. It’s that the one that made planning impossible has.
If you parked TikTok because of that, it’s worth another look.
Who’s Really on TikTok in Your Market
These are TikTok’s own advertising reach estimates for adults, which are the most current, source-dated data available.
- UK: around 24.9 million adults, roughly 36 per cent of the population
- US: around 136 million adults, roughly 39 per cent. Estimates vary between sources from 136 million up to 153 million, so treat it as a range
- Australia: around 10.2 million adults, roughly 37.5 per cent
So in all three of the markets most of you work in, somewhere between a third and two-fifths of the adult population is reachable on this platform.
That isn’t a niche. Which is why it’s worth making a proper decision about, rather than dismissing it because of what you assume is on there.
Now, the make-up of that audience is what matters for you.
In the UK, TikTok’s adult audience is around 62 per cent female, which is a big difference from the global picture. The largest UK segments are 25 to 34, at around 29 per cent, and 35 to 44, at around 23 per cent. In Australia, the gender split is close to even, and the 25 to 34 group is the biggest single segment at around 48 per cent. Globally, around two thirds of adult users sit in the 18 to 34 bracket, with about 8 per cent aged 55 and over.
What does that mean in practice?
TikTok’s built-in audience sits mainly in early to mid-career stages. It’s not where you’ll find a concentration of senior hiring decision-makers, board-level people or business owners. They’re on LinkedIn, and we covered that channel in a previous episode.
One more thing if you work in the Australian market. The under-16 social media ban came in during December 2025 and applies to TikTok, which has pushed the active base further towards adults. For reaching early career professionals in Australia, that makes it slightly more relevant, not less.
How the Algorithm Works, and Why It Matters to a Small Business
TikTok doesn’t work like LinkedIn or Facebook, and this is where people get caught out.
On most platforms, your content goes to your followers first. If you’ve got fifty followers, you reach fifty people. TikTok hands out reach through the For You Page, which works on interest rather than your follower list.
That means a brand-new account with nobody following it can get in front of thousands of people if the content works.
Please sit with that for a second, because it’s rare. On almost every other platform, you have to build an audience before you get reach. Here you don’t. For a small recruitment or search business starting from nothing, that’s the strongest argument for testing this channel.
In 2026, the algorithm has moved further towards rewarding completion rate, rewatches and total watch time. Not likes. Not follower count. Whether people watch your video to the end, and whether they go back and watch it again.
TikTok tests each video on a small sample first, then decides whether to push it wider.
There’s a second shift worth knowing about. People increasingly use TikTok as a search engine, typing questions into it the way they’d type them into Google. For a recruiter, that’s useful, because content answering real questions- what a role pays, what the interview process looks like, how to move into a sector- keeps working long after a trend has died.
On frequency, general guidance is one to four organic posts a week, with newer accounts sometimes benefiting from a few more while they build momentum.
On engagement, the estimates vary depending on who you read. One 2025 study puts TikTok at 4.86 per cent, another gives a median of 1.73 per cent, and a third gives 3.7 per cent. Different methodologies so that I wouldn’t build a business case on any single one. What they all agree on is that TikTok beats Instagram, Facebook and X on average engagement.
Why TikTok Won’t Get You, Clients
Now for the part I really want you to take away, and I’d rather you heard it from me than found out three months into a content plan.
When I went through the research for this episode, I was looking for one specific thing. A recruitment or search business that had won client work through TikTok. A PSL, a retained brief, an exclusive assignment. Something that started because a hiring manager saw them on the platform.
I couldn’t find one. Not in the UK, not in the US, not in Australia.
There is documented recruitment activity on TikTok, and some of it has real numbers attached. But it’s all candidate attraction and employer branding, and none of it is UK-based, so I’m not going to wave it in front of you as though it tells you something reliable about your market.
Does the absence prove it’s never happened? No. But it tells you something, and the audience data explains why. The people who sign off recruitment spend aren’t concentrated on this platform.
There’s a second gap worth naming while we’re being honest. There’s no reliable UK, US or Australia benchmark for return on investment on TikTok advertising specific to our sector. So if you go in, go in as a test with a defined budget and measure it yourself.
Attracting Candidates and Winning Clients Are Two Different Jobs
This is the bit that sits underneath everything else, and it costs recruitment business owners real money.
We talk about recruitment marketing as though it’s one thing.
It isn’t. It’s two jobs.
One is attracting candidates. Getting people to apply, building an employer brand, filling your talent pool.
The other is winning clients. Getting in front of hiring companies, starting conversations with decision-makers, landing briefs and retainers.
Different people. Different messages. Different channels.
And a channel can be brilliant at one and useless at the other.
Why does this matter so much?
Because you can spend six months posting away, watching the views come in, feeling like your marketing is finally working, and then wonder why your client pipeline hasn’t moved an inch.
It hasn’t moved because you were doing the other job.
I see this a lot. Someone tells me marketing doesn’t work for them, and when we unpick it, the marketing was working. They were doing something other than what they needed.
For winning company clients, the routes with proper evidence behind them are still LinkedIn, direct outreach, your email list and consistent content that builds your authority in your sector.
What It Costs You, in Time and Money
Time
Posting on TikTok is technically easy. Record, add captions, publish. A smartphone and the built-in editor will do, and you don’t need to buy any tools to start.
The harder part is the style. TikTok rewards content that feels natural, informal and gets to the point in the first two seconds. If you upload the polished corporate video you had made for your website, it’ll sink without a trace. That shift in thinking is the real investment, not the technology.
I’ll be honest that there’s no verified benchmark for how many hours a non-marketer needs to put in before they see results. Working back from the one to four posts a week guidance, plan for a few hours a week for filming, editing, captions and looking at what worked. That’s my estimate, not a sourced figure, and I’d rather tell you that than pretend otherwise.
Money
Organic is free. If you want to test paid, here’s what it looks like.
- Minimum campaign budget: 500 dollars lifetime, or 50 dollars a day at campaign level
- Minimum ad group budget: around 20 dollars a day in the US, 20 pounds a day in the UK, 30 Australian dollars a day in Australia
- Cost per thousand impressions: sources give ranges of 3.20 to 10 dollars, and 10 to 15 dollars for the US and UK specifically, so treat these as indicative
- Cost per click: typically 50 cents to 1.50 dollars
- A realistic first test: 300 to 500 over a fortnight, which is roughly what the algorithm needs to optimise
For comparison, a February 2026 UK benchmark puts Google Ads at around 1.55 pounds a click and Facebook at around 78 pence. So TikTok clicks can be competitive, and sometimes cheaper, once you convert them.
The number I’d hold onto is that first test figure. Three to five hundred over a fortnight is something most of the business owners we work with could stand to lose if it doesn’t come off. It isn’t a bet-the-house decision.
What Good Looks Like on TikTok
If you decide to test it, here’s what to do.
- Use TikTok’s in-app lead generation forms rather than pushing people off to your careers page. Every extra click loses you people
- Connect those leads to something fast for the follow-up. WhatsApp works well here. Speed protects the momentum you’ve paid for
- Build an account with a personality behind it, not a job board feed. Give people a reason to follow you before they need you
- Post consistently, one to four times a week, so the algorithm has enough to work with
- Answer the questions people in your sector are searching for. That content keeps earning long after a trend has passed
And what to avoid.
- Treating it as a way to win clients. The audience data doesn’t support it
- Over-polishing, because production value works against you here
- Posting in bursts. Three videos one week, then nothing for a month, gives the algorithm nothing to go on
What to Measure
If you can’t measure it, you can’t decide whether to carry on with it.
- Reach and impressions
- Video views, and importantly average watch time and completion rate, because that’s what the algorithm rewards now
- Engagement, meaning likes, comments, shares and saves
- Follower growth, as a secondary number rather than a headline one
- Click-through rate to any landing page or lead form
- If you’re running paid, cost per lead, and then how many of those leads turn into placements
TikTok gives you all of this through TikTok Studio for organic content and TikTok Ads Manager for paid. Both are free and fairly easy to read.
The last one on that list is the one that matters to your business. Leads on their own don’t pay anybody’s wages.
Questions to Help You Decide
Grab a pen and paper for this one. I’d rather you wrote the answers down than did it in your head.
Where does the talent you place sit?
If you’re hiring at volume for entry- to mid-level roles, the platform’s audience lines up with the people you need. If you’re doing executive search or senior professional services appointments, it doesn’t.
Is your main goal candidates or clients?
If it’s candidates and employer brand, this channel is worth a look. If it’s winning new clients, put the effort into LinkedIn and your email list instead.
Can you sustain one to four posts a week in an informal style?
Be honest with yourself here. If the answer is no, and for a lot of small teams it is, then adding a channel you can’t keep going will make your marketing worse, not better.
There’s Also Another Answer
Some of you will want to be on there anyway, on the basis that the people in early career roles today are the hiring managers you’ll be selling to in ten years.
That’s a fair argument, and I’m not going to talk you out of it.
Just be clear with yourself about what you’re buying. That’s a long-term brand play, not lead generation. Give it a small budget you wouldn’t miss, judge it on whether people know who you are rather than on placements, and don’t let it eat the time that belongs to the channels bringing money in this quarter.
What I wouldn’t do is run it as a brand play while privately hoping it produces clients. That way you’ve built the disappointment in from day one.
Final Thoughts
TikTok reaches between a third and two-fifths of the adult population across the UK, the US and Australia. Its audience sits mainly in early- to mid-career stages. It also gives small accounts a genuine shot at reach, which very few platforms do anymore.
But candidates and clients are two different jobs, and this channel only does one.
So if you place volume roles and you need applicants, test it properly, with a real budget and real measurement.
And if you run a search business placing senior people, close this door and put the time into something that’ll pay you back. Saying no to the wrong channel is a marketing decision, and it’s a good one.
Because the mistake I see most often isn’t picking the wrong channel.
It’s picking too many. Doing all of them at half effort. Then deciding marketing doesn’t work.
Marketing worked. It was just spread so thin that none of it got enough of you.
Pick two or three. Do them properly. Be consistent.
I hope that’s been useful.
Thanks
Denise
How We Can Help You
Choosing the right two or three channels is one thing. Showing up on them consistently while you’re running a business is another.
That’s what we help with inside Superfast Circle. Our members get done-for-you content every month, coaching calls and a clear marketing system, so being visible to the clients and candidates you want becomes straightforward rather than another thing on the list.
If you’d like to talk it through, book a call with us here:
www.superfastrecruitment.co.uk/call
