Founder & Managing Director, Marshall Harmony

Laura Davies.

Twenty-five years in recruitment. A decade building Marshall Harmony. A lifetime backing people other people overlook.

Based in Shropshire, UK
Sector Manufacturing & Engineering
Ambassador for Acorns Children's Hospice
Portrait of Laura Davies, Founder & Managing Director of Marshall Harmony

About Laura

Laura Davies founded Marshall Harmony to do recruitment differently. Honestly. Exclusively. With integrity. After 25 years inside an industry she felt was losing its way.

Laura is the Founder and Managing Director of Marshall Harmony, an independent recruitment consultancy based in Shropshire and specialising in manufacturing and engineering across the Midlands, Shropshire, and Staffordshire. She started the business after a quarter-century in recruitment, frustrated by what she saw as an industry that had drifted away from the people it was meant to serve. Marshall Harmony was her answer.

The name comes from her two children's middle names. The philosophy comes from her own. Laura works exclusively with clients, takes no upfront fees, and donates 2% of every placement to Acorns Children's Hospice, where she is an ambassador. The team is small and intentionally so. The standards are not.

Outside Marshall Harmony, Laura is a regular industry voice on the skills shortage in UK manufacturing, the generational handover problem, and the perception challenge keeping younger talent out of engineering. She has spoken at Vistage, the Midlands Business Network Expo, and ALFED Members' Day. In 2026, Marshall Harmony was nominated in eight categories at the Enterprise Vision Awards in Blackpool, where the company is also a programme sponsor.

When she is not in recruitment, Laura is a parent, a singer who has performed for Acorns to raise £1,000 in one night, and a producer whose musical won a NODA award for Best Musical in the region in 2025. She lives in Shropshire with her family.

25 yrs
In recruitment
92%
Fill rate, Marshall Harmony
82%
Retention at 12 months
2%
Of every placement to Acorns

On the record

Four positions Laura holds publicly.

i.

On the skills shortage in UK manufacturing

"There's a generation of engineers retiring out without passing the knowledge down. That's not a skills shortage. That's a handover failure."

Laura's view is that the UK manufacturing skills crisis is not primarily about a lack of trainable people. It is about a generation of experienced engineers retiring without structured succession plans, and an industry that has not invested in transferring tacit knowledge from the people who hold it to the people who need it. She argues this is solvable, but requires hiring managers to treat retention and progression as the same problem.

ii.

On exclusive recruitment

"I don't do bonfires. If we've got a job on, no one else is on it. That's not a marketing position. It's how we know the work is being done properly."

Marshall Harmony only works exclusively with clients on roles, refusing the standard recruitment industry practice of having multiple agencies racing on the same vacancy. Laura sees this as the foundation of doing the work well: exclusivity creates the conditions for proper briefing, proper research, and proper communication with candidates. Without it, every recruiter is incentivised to send CVs fast and hope.

iii.

On ethical recruitment fees

"I wouldn't sleep at night if we took upfront fees. The work happens before we get paid. That's the deal."

Marshall Harmony does not charge retainer or upfront fees. Laura argues that the recruitment industry has trained clients to expect they will pay for a search before a placement is made, and that this model fundamentally misaligns incentives. Marshall Harmony places people first, gets paid only when the placement is made, and stands behind the result.

iv.

On the perception problem in engineering

"Young people think factories are dirty, loud places. The factories I walk into are clean, technical, exciting environments full of properly skilled people doing properly important work."

One of the structural challenges Marshall Harmony works against daily is the cultural narrative around manufacturing as a career path. Laura is vocal about the gap between the industry's reality and its perception, and about the role recruiters, employers, and educators all have to play in closing it. Without that work, she argues, the skills crisis only deepens.

Recent work

Where Laura has been recently.

April 2026

MACH 2026, NEC Birmingham

Exhibitor & industry presence. Five days at the UK's leading manufacturing technology exhibition. Sponsoring the University of Wolverhampton Racing stand. Hosted the Marshall Harmony "Strike a Light" engagement game.

April 2026

ALFED Members' Day

Attending member. The Aluminium Federation's first Members' Day at Bragborough Hall, Daventry. Laura joined alongside the Marshall Harmony team to engage with the aluminium supply chain.

May 2026

Midlands Business Network Expo

Sponsor & seminar host. Marshall Harmony was a sponsor of MBN Expo 2026 at Wolverhampton Racecourse. Laura delivered a seminar: "Are you hiring to solve the problem... or just fill the role?"

April 2026

Vistage UK Speaking Event

Guest speaker. Speaking to a peer group of business leaders on candidate experience, employer brand, and the gap between what job adverts say and what they should say.

September 2026

Women With Metal Conference

Industry supporter. Eastside Rooms, Birmingham. Marshall Harmony is a long-standing supporter of Kirsty Davies-Chinnock's work on women in the metal and wider manufacturing sectors.

October 2026

Enterprise Vision Awards 2026

Nominee & programme sponsor. Winter Gardens, Blackpool. Marshall Harmony nominated across eight categories. Programme sponsor for the event.

In her own words

From interviews and conversations.

"

We give a shit. That's the difference. We don't just throw somebody in and never speak to them again.

— On what makes Marshall Harmony different
"

Clients think they need someone on a seat and a salary for a job title. What they actually need is to go back to what the problem is and solve that.

— On what hiring managers get wrong
"

People are too obsessed with gaps in CVs. I'll dig deeper. People are people, not CVs.

— On reading beyond the page
"

We've got two ears and one mouth for a reason. You can't understand someone's point of view if you're just butting in.

— On the role of listening in recruitment

Get in touch

For press, podcasts, speaking, and the rest.

Laura is available for podcast interviews, panel appearances, press commentary on the manufacturing and engineering recruitment sector, and selective consulting engagements. The fastest route is by email.

For direct enquiries
Email Laura
For sector commentary & connection
LinkedIn
For recruitment briefs & hiring
Marshall Harmony
For podcast & speaking
Booking enquiry