Are Adecco and Randstad the same company?

No, they are the two largest staffing rivals in the world. Akkodis belongs to the Adecco Group; Randstad is an independent Dutch firm that has held the global number one position for seven consecutive years.

What do Akkodis and Randstad charge?

Neither publishes rates. Buyers report 40 to 60% markups on contract staff and 20 to 25% of first-year salary on permanent hires, with Akkodis R&D programs priced as custom statements of work. Hyring publishes a flat 7% in India and 14% in the US and rest of world.

Which is better for engineering R&D hiring?

Akkodis, clearly: automotive, aerospace, embedded, and industrial software programs are its founding depth, especially in Europe. Randstad covers engineering as one professional line among many. For remote-capable software engineering, Hyring's flat-fee AI-screened model is usually the cheapest route.

Which is better for volume and general staffing?

Randstad, without contest. Industrial, logistics, admin, and contact-center volume across continents is its core engine. Akkodis does not compete in that space.

How fast can each deliver candidates?

Consultant-led shortlists typically take one to three weeks at both firms. Hyring delivers AI-screened shortlists with recordings and calibrated scores in 48 to 72 hours for most software and professional roles.

Can engineering software roles be filled remotely from India?

Software-defined engineering, embedded software, data, and QA travel well; lab-bound hardware work does not. Hyring places dedicated engineers in India at 60 to 70% below Western contractor cost, screens them with AI coding interviews, and runs engagements on Insight by Hyring for transparent tracking.

How is Hyring different from Akkodis and Randstad?

Hyring is an AI-native recruitment agency with flat, published fees: 7% of CTC in India and 14% in the US and rest of world. AI screening backed by 900,000+ interviews covers every candidate, thousands of recruiting partners work each role, and clients get a live portal with Insight on augmented teams. Book a call to price your open roles.

Agency Comparison

Akkodis vs Randstad: Engineering Depth or the World's Largest Network?

The Adecco Group's engineering brand against its parent's greatest rival. R&D specialism versus planetary scale, and a flat-fee AI-native third column that reprices the overlap both firms fight over.

Last updated on: July 14, 2026Read time: 9 mins

Written byAdithyan RKFact checked bySurya N

Firms merged into Akkodis: AKKA + Modis

1.7M

People Randstad placed in 2025

7% / 14%

Hyring flat fee, India / rest of world

60–70%

Savings, remote India vs US contractor

There is a family feud inside this comparison. Akkodis is the engineering and digital brand of the Adecco Group; Randstad is the Dutch giant that overtook Adecco for the world number one spot and has held it for seven straight years at roughly $27 billion in revenue. When these two appear on the same vendor list, an engineering-heavy employer is really weighing specialist depth against network gravity.

Hyring fills the third column: an AI-native recruitment agency with US, India, and Dubai delivery, published fees, and a screening engine trained on 900,000+ interviews for Fortune 500 companies. Both incumbents earn honest credit below. Both also share a pricing structure the overlap between them no longer justifies, and the overlap is where most of your requisitions live.

Quick Verdict

Akkodis wins engineering R&D programs, Randstad wins workforce scale across categories, and Hyring wins the software overlap on fee and speed.

Pick Akkodis

When the work is product engineering with certification cycles, test benches, and European R&D centers of gravity.

Pick Randstad

When engineering is one workstream inside a broad workforce program spanning industrial, admin, and professional volume.

Pick Hyring

When the roles are software, data, or QA: flat 14% US perm, remote India engineers at 60 to 70% savings, shortlists in 72 hours.

Who Are Akkodis and Randstad?

Akkodis is the Adecco Group's engineering brand built from AKKA and Modis; Randstad is the world's largest staffing firm across all categories.

Akkodis merged AKKA Technologies' decades of European engineering consulting with Modis' IT staffing in 2022, producing a firm equally at home certifying automotive software in Stuttgart and filling cloud seats in Chicago. The R&D bench is the moat: nobody else on this page staffs a functional-safety program credibly.

Randstad's moat is logistics. A machine that places 1.7 million people a year across 39 markets, from warehouse shifts to executive search, with Randstad Digital carrying the tech flag and Randstad Enterprise running market-leading MSP programs. Scale is not a slogan there; it is the operating system.

What Do Akkodis and Randstad Cost?

Buyers report 40 to 60% contract markups and 20 to 25% permanent fees at both firms, with Akkodis R&D work priced as custom SOWs.

Contract staffing: 40 to 60% markups over pay rate at both, volume discounts negotiable at Randstad scale.
Permanent hires: 20 to 25% of first-year salary at both brands.
Akkodis R&D programs: custom statements of work at consulting economics.

Hyring's direct hire fee is published: 7% of CTC in India, 14% flat in the US and rest of world. A $128,000 embedded software engineer costs $17,920 against a typical $25,600 to $32,000, and the base itself can be sanity-checked against our free salary benchmarks before anyone quotes anything.

Perm fee on a $128,000 US embedded software engineer

Competitor figures are typical reported ranges; Hyring fee is published

Embedded software is the telling example: it sounds like R&D, but most of it runs in an IDE and staffs remotely just fine.

Full Comparison Table: Akkodis vs Randstad vs Hyring

The firms split on specialism versus scale, while the AI-native column splits from both on fee, speed, and screening evidence.

Head-to-head across ten buying criteria
Criteria	Akkodis	Randstad	Hyring
Parent / structure	Adecco Group brand	Independent, world's largest at ~$27B	Independent, AI-native
Core strength	Engineering R&D, Europe-led	Workforce scale across all categories	Software and professional hiring, AI-led
Perm fee	~20–25% (typical)	~20–25% (typical)	7% India, 14% US, flat and published
Contract pricing	~40–60% markup, SOW for R&D	~40–60% markup, volume deals	~30% below big-firm quotes
Engineering R&D bench	Founding depth	One professional line among many	Software-defined engineering, remote-first
Volume staffing	No	Global core engine	Remote-capable volume via AI Phone Screener
Remote India model	Delivery centers in some programs	Delivery centers inside programs	Core: 60–70% savings, compliance handled
Screening	Consultant screens, domain vetting	Recruiter screens, enterprise assessments	AI coding, video, and English tests on every candidate
Time-to-shortlist	One to three weeks	One to three weeks	48–72 hours for most roles
Best for	Certification-bound engineering programs	Mixed workforce programs at scale	Software, data, and QA hiring at flat fees

The Overlap Zone: Ordinary Software Hiring

Both firms compete hardest over standard software roles, where neither has a structural cost edge and AI-native screening reprices the market.

Strip away the R&D programs and the warehouse volume, and what remains on most requisition lists is ordinary software hiring: backend, cloud, data, QA. Akkodis staffs it with consultants, Randstad with branches, and both bill the same structure for it. That zone is our home turf.

Every candidate in it passes the AI Coding Interviewer, the AI Video Interviewer, and where communication carries the role, the English proficiency test, ranked first by the AI Resume Screener. Sourcing runs wide through the Hyring Jobs portal and the Recruiting Partners network, thousands of independent recruiters paid on placements. Candidates prep with the free Jobseeker Toolkit and interview questions library, and for roles that travel, our IT staff augmentation teams in India run on Insight by Hyring, tracked hours and focus patterns visible to both sides, employees first.

Fact

The line between R&D engineering and remote-capable software is finer than job titles suggest. The role-design guides in our Learn hub draw it function by function, and the build-vs-augment calculator in the free HR Toolkit, 150+ tools, turns the answer into numbers in minutes.

STEP 1

Brief the role

Send your JD or adapt one from 900+ templates in the JD library. Intake call within 24 hours.

STEP 2

AI screens the pool

Portal applicants and partner submissions pass coding, video, and English screening automatically.

STEP 3

Review in the portal

Watch recordings, compare calibrated scores, shortlist in 48 to 72 hours.

STEP 4

Hire flat-fee

14% US, 7% India. Augmented teams run on Insight for transparent tracking.

Which One Should You Pick?

Certification-bound engineering to Akkodis, mixed workforce scale to Randstad, and the software overlap to the flat-fee quote first.

The feud between these giants is real, but for most employers the decisive move is stepping outside it. Send the R&D program where the bench is, send the warehouse volume where the machine is, and send one ordinary software requisition to the flat-fee model before signing a percentage agreement for the whole list. A week of parallel evidence beats a decade of brand assumption.

Written by

Adithyan RK

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CEO & Co-founder, Hyring

18+ years of experience

Adithyan RK is the Co-Founder and CEO of Hyring, an AI-native recruitment platform that has run over 900,000 AI interviews for companies ranging from early-stage startups to the Fortune 500. He has spent 18 years building technology businesses, starting with a digital consultancy in 2008 and a staff augmentation firm in 2017, before founding Hyring in 2022 to rebuild hiring around evidence instead of guesswork. Read more

Expertise

AI RecruitmentAI InterviewsRecruitment AutomationHR TechnologyHiring AnalyticsApplicant TrackingRecruiter Operations

Fact checked by

Surya N

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CTO & Co-founder, Hyring

6+ years of experience

Surya N is the Co-Founder and CTO of Hyring, where he architected the AI interviewing engine that has now conducted over 900,000 interviews for companies ranging from early-stage startups to the Fortune 500. A mechanical engineer who moved into artificial intelligence, he spent 6 years building AI applications inside a technology consultancy before co-founding Hyring, and wrote the first version of its AI interviewer from scratch. Read more

Expertise

AI Interview SystemsConversational AIInterview Fraud DetectionPlatform ArchitectureMachine Learning EngineeringApplied AISpeech and Voice AIBias Testing and Model Evaluation

Step outside the giant rivalry for one role

Brief us a software role you were quoting with Akkodis or Randstad. Within 72 hours: a fee comparison, an AI-screened shortlist with coding scores and recordings, and portal access. If the role genuinely needs an R&D bench or volume machinery, we will say exactly that.

FAQs

Akkodis is the Adecco Group's engineering and digital brand, formed from AKKA Technologies and Modis, strongest in engineering R&D across Europe. Randstad is the world's largest staffing firm at roughly $27 billion revenue, covering every workforce category with tech served through Randstad Digital.