The fake job problem is getting worse. Are contractors a particularly easy target?

Lloyds Banking Group recorded a 237% rise in advanced fee job scams between January and August 2025, and AI has made it significantly cheaper and easier to run them at scale. The surge in AI-powered recruitment scams has been well documented, but the contractor market has its own specific vulnerabilities, and they’re worth understanding separately.

Why contractors are an attractive target

The typical contractor profile ticks several boxes for a scammer. High day rates mean there’s more to extract, whether through advance fees, fake onboarding costs, or harvested personal data that can be sold or used for identity fraud. Hiring is almost entirely digital now, which removes the in-person verification that might otherwise catch a fraudulent recruiter out. And contractors tend to move between roles regularly, meaning they’re in active job search mode more often than a permanent employee.

Keith Rosser, chair of JobsAware, quoted in The Guardian: “You can sit nowadays anywhere in the world and run a large job scam against people in the UK. It’s not very difficult, you’ve got a reasonable chance of success, and you’ve got a very low chance of being caught.”

There’s also a timing problem unique to contracting. Being caught out mid-bench, when you’re actively looking and potentially watching your runway shrink, is a particularly bad moment to lose time or money to a fake opportunity.

What contractors are actually seeing

Adam Jordan, Fractional CEO and judge for The Contracting Awards, says he’s noticed a clear uptick in the quality of suspicious outreach. “I have seen a noticeable increase in outreach that feels overly targeted or too polished, particularly via LinkedIn and email. In some cases, roles lack a clear client, have vague deliverables, or the recruiter’s digital footprint is minimal or inconsistent.”

One contractor, a product strategist who asked to remain anonymous, flags something subtler but equally concerning. Beyond outright scams, they’ve noticed a broader shift toward highly automated hiring processes that make it increasingly difficult to tell what’s genuine and what isn’t. “A lot of recruiter outreach now feels empty, overly polished, and strangely impersonal, almost like targeted advertising rather than a real human conversation.”

They’ve also become more cautious about where the process leads. “If a process immediately takes me away from a trusted platform into extremely long forms, multiple recorded video responses, or excessive screening rounds before any human interaction, that’s usually a red flag.”

Another contractor had a more direct experience. Already wary of uploading their CV details to job portals, they eventually did so after struggling to find another way to apply. Within weeks, the scam calls started. At least one a day, some asking them to add a number on WhatsApp to hear about a role, others using an AI-generated voice trying to mimic a recruiter. Their mobile number had clearly been scraped from one or several of the portals. The volume got bad enough that they started reverse pranking the callers back. They even showed me a clip, which was quite entertaining.

It wasn’t a dodgy site either. One of the reputable ones, apparently. The point is that uploading your CV anywhere puts your contact details into circulation in ways that are difficult to control or trace.

The scams themselves have become harder to dismiss at first glance. AI-generated job listings now routinely mirror the language and structure of legitimate postings. Cloned recruiter profiles on LinkedIn include convincing employment histories, shared connections, and profile activity designed to appear genuine. Even a few years ago, says Rosser, you could often spot a scam just by looking at the grammar. But that’s no longer a reliable tell.

Part of what makes this so difficult now is that AI has flattened the signals we used to rely on. “AI has definitely shifted the landscape. On one hand, it’s made job searching more efficient and targeted,” says Adam. “On the other hand, it’s also enabled more sophisticated scams, from highly personalised outreach to convincingly written job specs. My level of diligence has increased as a result, particularly around verifying sources and not relying solely on the quality of communication.”

Quality of communication used to be a reasonable proxy for legitimacy. It no longer is. And crucially, this isn’t just coming from obviously dodgy sources. Scam outreach is arriving through what look like professional, established channels, which is what makes it so hard to dismiss in the moment.

Adam also thinks contractors face a specific exposure that permanent job seekers don’t. “The nature of contract work, shorter engagements, quicker hiring cycles, and often remote onboarding, creates more opportunity for bad actors to operate without the same level of scrutiny you might see in permanent hiring.”

The product strategist agrees. “Contractors are often operating in high-volume outreach environments, navigating uncertainty, and constantly evaluating new opportunities quickly. That creates the perfect conditions for both scams and low-quality automated recruitment to blend together.”

What to watch for

Adam’s approach to verification has become more structured as a result of what he’s seen. “I’ll typically verify the recruiter’s company via Companies House and their website, check LinkedIn presence for both the individual and the company, and look for consistency in branding and communication. A quick call with the recruiter is often the fastest way to sense-check legitimacy.”

Consistent red flags to add to that list: roles that appear only on job boards and not on the company’s own careers page, recruiters using free email domains, requests for personal or financial information early in the process, and hiring timelines that move unusually fast with no verifiable human contact at the other end.

Adam’s broader advice is straightforward. “Trust your instincts and verify before engaging. If something feels off, whether it’s the speed of the process, lack of detail, or requests for sensitive information early on, it’s worth pausing.”

“Pay attention to the feeling and structure of the process itself,” the anonymous product strategist says. “If the communication feels generic, overly automated, or disconnected from the actual role, it’s worth questioning.”

The Better Hiring Institute published guidance on hiring fraud earlier this year, produced alongside Reed Screening and Cifas, following a parliamentary session on the issue. It’s worth a read for anyone actively searching right now.

The bigger picture

Recruitment fraud isn’t new. But AI has changed the economics of it. What used to require real effort now scales easily, and the contractor market, with its digital hiring norms, high stakes, and regular job searching, is a natural place for that to land.

One final thing worth knowing. Fraud experts warn of what’s known as a “suckers list”: once scammers know you’ve engaged with a fake opportunity, your details can be shared or sold to other fraudsters, making you a target all over again. For a contractor already navigating a difficult bench period, that’s the last thing anyone needs.

The best defence is probably the least glamorous one. Slow down, verify everything independently, and treat anything that feels too smooth or too fast with a healthy amount of suspicion. And maybe think twice before uploading your CV everywhere at once.