Enquirer Consulting Group

Reachable Buyer Map

Prepared for Matt Phelan · The Happiness Index · August 2026
From the outside this reads as a content-led business: a book, a podcast, a benchmark report, a keynote. That is a strong channel with a ceiling built into it, because it reaches the people who already chose to be in the room. This map is the rest of the room. The UK employer segments where the seat that buys staff sentiment data is a named job title, who signs inside each one, and roughly how many there are. It describes the market rather than your business, and there is nothing to buy at the end of it.
UK large employers, 250 people and up
The band where staff sentiment is already a funded line with a named owner rather than a favor asked of HR once a year. Slowest to sell into and least likely to switch on impulse, but the commitment renews and the question never goes away.
Who signs: chief people officer, HR director, head of employee experience, internal communications lead, and the chief executive on anything labeled culture.
8,000 to 8,500
UK businesses employing 250 people or more
UK mid-market employers, 50 to 249 people
Four to five times the size of the band above, and the one where the whole people function is often a single director with no analyst behind them. Large enough to have a real sentiment problem, small enough that one conversation settles it. The biggest reachable group on this page.
Who signs: HR director or head of people, frequently the only one, plus the managing director, the operations director and the finance director on the buying decision.
36,000 to 40,000
UK businesses employing 50 to 249 people
Health and care providers
The largest single concentration of workforce and retention pressure in the country, and the one sector that already publishes its own staff survey results every year. Procurement is slow, the headcount per account is enormous, and the work recurs once it lands.
Who signs: director of workforce, director of people and organizational development, chief nurse, staff experience lead.
200 to 215
NHS provider trusts in England, before independent hospital groups and social care operators
Universities and higher education
One employer, several thousand staff, and two populations, academic and professional services, who experience the same institution completely differently. Sentiment work is bought once and consumed faculty by faculty, which makes external benchmarking the part they cannot build in house.
Who signs: director of HR, pro vice chancellor for people, head of organizational development, university secretary or registrar.
160 to 170
UK universities, sitting inside roughly 290 to 310 higher education providers on the wider definition
Larger charities and mission-led employers
High emotional load, low pay ceilings and public accountability for how staff are treated, which is the exact combination this kind of data exists to explain. They also publish more about themselves than any other segment, so a specific opening line is easy to write and rare to receive.
Who signs: director of people, chief operating officer, chief executive, and the trustee board on a culture review.
7,000 to 9,000
of roughly 170,000 registered charities, the layer carrying income above the audit threshold and real payroll
Sport, membership and governing bodies
A segment with a network shape rather than a market shape: a small number of employers who all know each other, watch each other and copy quickly. Said plainly, no public register lists them at a useful level of detail, which is precisely why the segment stays underworked by everyone.
Who signs: chief executive, head of people, performance director, head of culture.
Roughly 90 to 100 recognized governing bodies
plus about 90 professional football clubs and a wider membership body layer, reached by name rather than pulled off a list

Where the openings are

1
Content selects for the already interested. A keynote, a podcast, a book and a benchmark report all reach people who chose to be in the room that day. The employers with the worst sentiment problem are the least likely to have sent anyone, and they are usually the ones who move fastest once somebody arrives with something specific about them.
2
There are two buyers here and one voice. The platform is bought by HR operations, who want the data, the cadence and the benchmark. The advisory work is bought by a chief executive or a board, who want a diagnosis and a decision. In this category thought leadership tends to speak to the second and has to convert into the first. That is two audiences, two lists and two openings.
3
The buying seat turns over, and the turnover is the trigger. A new chief people officer or HR director reopens the staff survey question inside their first two quarters almost every time. That moment is visible from outside if something is watching several thousand employers for it, and invisible to any channel that waits for the search to start.
4
The mid-market is the underworked band and it is the largest. Roughly 36,000 to 40,000 UK employers between 50 and 249 people. They rarely appear at summits, they almost never commission research, and the whole decision usually sits with two people who already know they have a problem they cannot name.
Built from public market data, counts banded deliberately. Employer bands describe registered UK businesses rather than sites, so a multi-site group counts once and headcount sits with the legal entity. The health, education and charity figures come from separate public sources and are not directly comparable with the employer bands above. Sport and membership bodies are not enumerated anywhere public at a useful level, so they are described rather than counted.
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