This is where PHM Search is headquartered — a specialist engineering recruitment agency working across health sciences, biomedical devices, agri-food processing and advanced manufacturing throughout Southwestern Ontario. Being based here does not change the method: we approach people directly, wherever they are.
Health and life sciences is the deepest, most defensible cluster in this city — well over a hundred companies and tens of thousands of workers built around London’s hospital and research network and Western University’s health faculties, feeding real demand for biomedical and medical-device engineers.
Agri-food processing adds a second layer, and the EV battery build underway in nearby St. Thomas is pulling automation and manufacturing talent from the same commuting radius. All three compete for the same pool a Toronto employer is also recruiting from.
London posted the highest unemployment rate of any major Canadian metro through the first half of 2026, even as its health-sciences and manufacturing base kept hiring — a genuine mismatch, not a lack of demand. The harder problem for most employers here is retention: London pays less than Toronto and Kitchener-Waterloo for the same engineering seniority, and a search has to make the rest of the offer do that work.
This is home. PHM Search has been an engineering recruitment agency in the Forest City since 2000 — long enough to know which firms grow people worth approaching, who moves between them, and who will take the call. That network was earned one placement at a time across health sciences, biomedical devices, agri-food processing and advanced manufacturing, and it is the reason we know this market better than a firm parachuting in for one search. For health sciences, manufacturing and technical leadership roles, we map the market and approach people directly, whether the search stays in this city or moves across the country.
We recruit construction and technology roles in London the same way, whenever the mandate calls for it — this page focuses on engineering because that is where most of our London search work sits.
Related reading: how to tell if your recruitment is working, and questions to ask an engineering recruiter.
Yes. We recruit engineering, life sciences and manufacturing professionals across London and Southwestern Ontario. We are headquartered right here in London, Ontario, and recruit across Canada and the USA.
Biomedical and medical-device engineers, process and food-safety engineers, and automation or industrial engineers for the manufacturing base — plus rising demand from the St. Thomas battery build spilling into this labour market.
Yes — this is our head office. It is one reason we understand this labour market from the inside, though the bulk of our work is done outside London, across Canada and the U.S.
London salaries generally sit below Toronto and Kitchener-Waterloo for equivalent engineering seniority, offset partly by a lower cost of living. That gap is real and has to be addressed directly in an offer, not glossed over.
Yes. Confidential searches — replacing someone still in post, or building a role you cannot advertise — are handled through retained executive search, where nothing about the mandate is visible in the market.
We are a specialist search firm, and “engineering headhunters” is the older word for the same work. We do not post roles or forward applicants; we map a market and approach people directly, most of whom are not looking. Permanent placement is the only work we do.
A conversation about the London hire ahead of you — local, relocating, or remote, and what each route realistically costs.