This paper examines the role of local recruitment agencies in facilitating post‐accession east European migration to the UK. Although it is widely acknowledged that transnational labour market intermediaries are contributing to all three stages of labour migration involving the recruitment of workers, their movement across borders and their placement in employment, less attention has focused on the role of local or national agencies that, it is argued, exert considerable leverage on migration flows. Drawing on case study research undertaken with east European migrants in a small underperforming local labour market, the paper explores the ways in which local or lone recruitment agents have become embedded as key institutional actors in transnational networks and examines their role as migration mediators. The expansion of flexible, deregulated labour markets and the coincident growth in temporary agency work have created a regulatory context whereby the ‘management’ of east European migration to the UK through the Worker Registration Scheme actually contributed to the growth in local agency employment by enabling migrants to fulfil their immigration requirements. It is argued that once embedded within migrant networks and ethically segregated labour markets, agencies have played a key role in facilitating further migration from Eastern Europe. The discursive construction of migrants as ‘temporary workers’ coupled with the association of precarious agency employment with ‘migrant work’ has further cemented this relationship. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.