David
Parker
Managing Director
“I was born and raised in South London and grew up as the eldest of 5 children. My passions as a child were (and still are!) football, exercise, nature, art & graphics and having fun with my family and friends!
I entered the recruitment industry at the age of 21 and spent the first 3 years focused on the tech contract market in the UK & Mainland Europe (BeNeLux primarily). I relocated to Singapore at the age of 24 to continue building my career in technology recruitment and experience what Asia Pacific had to offer. I had the pleasure of supporting Financial Services customers with their technology & change hiring, building valuable relationships, leading teams, managing accounts, building successful businesses and making life-long connections.
After a fantastic ten years in Singapore, we decided as a family it was time to move home. We arrived back in London in June 2020 (yes, slap bang in the middle of the pandemic!) and I spent the next 18 months focused on re-establishing myself back in the London / UK Tech market.
I had always aspired to run my own business, so at the end of 2021, I resigned (from my employer of ten years) and launched Pickhurst Partners in March 2022. I bootstrapped the business for the first 12 months; building a solid foundation and attractive client base, before securing investment from James Caan’s Recruitment Entrepreneur, to help accelerate our growth and ambition to become a market-leading, global technology talent brand. I’m very happy with the team that we’re building and excited for what we’re going to achieve together!
When I’m not working, I’m either watching / playing football, at the gym exercising, enjoying time with friends & family or running the kids between sports clubs and parties!”
James
Parker
Co Founder & Director
"I was quite late starting my recruitment career with my first job being an apprenticeship in plumbing. I spent 7 years braving the elements on the construction sites of various London skyscrapers before making the jump to recruitment at the age of 23.
With a seasoned career in tech recruitment spanning 12 years, I've spent the last eight specialising in the data and AI markets. My core expertise lies in recruiting for roles such as Data Engineers, Data Scientists, ML Engineers, DevOps/MLOps Engineers, and Software Engineers.
It all started in 2011, I joined the Financial Markets team at Networkers, focusing on tech hiring for companies like JPMorgan, Nomura, Nasdaq, and Rabobank. My promotion to Consultant in 2014 led me to establish a new desk in the big data market which grew to focus more on Data Science and AI across the UK and Germany. Our primary business involved placing Data Scientists into group-centric innovation labs and centres of excellence of Europe's largest enterprises and had the pleasure of working on ground-breaking tech projects in Autonomous Driving, AI Drug discovery, and Quantitative trading.
Most recently I joined Seldon, a series A tech start-up as the first on the ground in their talent acquisition team and was tasked with setting-up processes and creating a strategy.
At home, I'm kept on my toes by my fiancée and our two boys, with an interesting, and entertaining, 14-year gap between them. We share our household with Harlow, our 6-year-old French Bulldog. If you're lucky, you might catch the soothing sounds of his snoring during our video calls – a delightful touch of ASMR, as one of my former colleagues aptly put it.
When it comes to passions, football sits at the top of my list. I am an active participant in the sport, whether it involves playing, coaching, or watching matches. You can often spot me at the Emirates, cheering on my favourite team.
In recent years, my spare time has been dedicated to a home renovation project which began during the pandemic. Balancing DIY tasks with parenting duties has been a challenging but rewarding endeavour. As this renovation project draws to a close, I am on the lookout for fresh hobbies to engage in. So, if you have any exciting suggestions or invitations, don't hesitate to share them with me – I'm all ears!"