The challenge 

River Island, one of the UK’s best-known high street fashion brands, was deep into a major digital transformation. 

By 2018, its internal talent team was struggling to meet the growing demand for specialist technology roles that supported new digital initiatives. The business needed to scale its tech capability fast across both permanent and contract hires, while strengthening its employer brand and improving hiring processes in an increasingly competitive retail tech market. 

Our approach 

Revoco became River Island’s long-term strategic talent partner, building a comprehensive hiring programme that delivered speed, brand credibility and measurable results. 

Employer brand & EVP creation: We helped define a compelling story for tech professionals at River Island, building a new, engaging EVP tailored to the tech audience. 

• Careers page & social campaigns: We designed and launched a fresh techfocused careers page and ran targeted social media campaigns to drive candidate traffic. 
• Full lifecycle hiring (perm & contract): We recruited for a mix of permanent and contract roles building entire engineering teams (including in rare tech stacks like GoLang), DevOps teams, and supporting agile delivery functions. 
• Process & efficiency transformation: We helped streamline the hiring funnel using video interviewing for shortlisting, reducing time-to-hire by ~70%. 
• By introducing our MSP model, we were able to carefully control contractor costs whilst ensuring greater compliance with the workforce and operational efficiencies.  

The Impact 

Through close collaboration, River Island gained the people, structure and processes needed to meet its transformation goals and become a recognised leader in retail technology. 

Key results

• 334 total hires across permanent and contract roles 
• 65% improvement in onboarding experience 
• ~70% reduction in time-to-hire 
• Improved quality of hire and team performance 
• Transition from Waterfall to Agile delivery frameworks 
• 7-year partnership, acting as River Island’s outsourced talent team