Recruiters across the country are celebrating after being named some of the UK's best companies to work for.

A total of 29 recruitment businesses have been named as the 'cream of the enterprise crop' in Britain, and some will feature in the Sunday Times Best 100 Companies to Work For list, to be published in March.

Of the 29 recruiters, six achieved the highest three-star status: Cobalt Recruitment, Hydrogen Group, Judd Farris, meta-morphose International, Robert Half International and The SG Group. Two-star winners were: Badenoch & Clark, Informatiq Consulting, Jobwise, Marks Sattin, PFJ, Randstad Work Solutions, SThree, Tate and Witan and Jardine.

Alexander Mann Solutions, Huntress Search, Imprint, Jobs@Pertemps, Jobsite UK, Macdonald & Company, Martin Ward Anderson, Michael Page International, Modis, Penta Consulting, Personnel & Care Bank, Premier Group, Red Commerce and Smart Group Recruitment were all one-star winners. The Best Companies Index is calculated through a survey of employees across seven main criteria: leadership, well-being, 'my manager', 'my team', 'my company', personal growth, giving something back and fair deal.

Every company that goes for Best Companies accreditation is given a Best Companies Index (BCI) score. This score, on a scale of 1 to 1,000, is offered from employees' responses to 16 key questions in the survey.

Star status is determined by the BCI score and the specific cut-off points for one, two and three-star accreditation remain constant year-on-year.

Pip Zingg, leader of operations at marketing and HR specialist The SG Group, told Recruiter: "I think it's really encouraging that there are so many recruitment companies in this list. We don't struggle to recruit staff but we don't have people knocking on our door because of some of the perceptions people have about recruitment. Hopefully, this will help change some of those perceptions.