A senior MES vacancy typically costs £500 to £3,000 per day in lost productivity, project delays, and operational risk.
Definition
Cost of vacancy is the economic impact of a role sitting unfilled, calculated as the daily revenue or productivity contribution of that position multiplied by the number of days the role is open. It's the number most companies ignore when evaluating whether to use a retained search partner or run the process internally.
What this means when you're hiring
For a senior MES Programme Manager at £120K, a basic COV calculation puts the daily cost of vacancy at roughly £500 to £800 when you factor in delayed project milestones, consultant cover costs, and internal team strain. Over a 90-day vacancy, that's £45K to £72K in real business cost, before you've paid a recruiter anything. I use this number with clients who push back on a £35K retained fee; the maths usually shifts the conversation quickly. In regulated manufacturing environments, a vacant Quality Director position can delay product releases and trigger compliance risk that dwarfs any recruitment fee.
Where candidates get this wrong
HR teams often calculate COV by looking only at salary divided by working days, which massively underestimates the true cost. The real cost includes project delays, knowledge transfer drain on existing team, temporary contractor uplift, and the compounding cost of a bad hire if urgency leads to compromised selection standards.
How expectations change by level
COV scales sharply with seniority. A vacant analyst-level MES role costs £100 to £200 per day. A vacant MES Director role at a major pharmaceutical site can cost £1K to £3K per day when project delay risk is priced in. Executive COV is the strongest commercial argument for investing in retained search rather than waiting for the right CV to appear on a job board.
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