Where we work: Mapping the UK agency workforce

There are many ways to understand the size and scope of the UK agency sector, but fundamental to any analysis of the sector landscape and its impact on the wider economy is its workforce. Where do people work for agencies? In what type of agencies? Which specialisms are seeing a growth in their workforce, and which are experiencing contraction? As we approach the end of 2025, we are exploring the agency workforce and the 283,966 people working within the 25,667 active agencies we have mapped.

In addition to gaining a better understanding of the impact of the UK agency sector in general, employment patterns have become increasingly significant with the launch of the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy. In it, the government has identified creative industries as one of the eight growth-driving sectors worthy of targeted investment and support. 

In turn, and as a key driver of economic growth within the creative industries, our sector has an important role to play in the success of the wider strategy that has growth and jobs at the heart of its goals. In the report we take a closer look at the agency workforce in Glasgow City Region, one of the key hubs identified for the creative industries within the Industrial Strategy.

Key findings

• Agency workforce demonstrates strong growth despite sector pressures. The 9.6% employment growth rate among the mapped agencies significantly outpaces traditional industries although pressures remain
• Workforce concentration reveals two sides of the sector, with 39.9% of the workforce employed by just 165 agencies while nano, micro and small agencies still account for almost a quarter (23.5%) of agency employment
• Digital and Technology agencies are driving employment expansion, with the highest proportion of the workforce across the subsectors (39.9%) and the second highest growth rate (11.6%)
• Performance-driven subsectors are outpacing traditional creative disciplines. Performance and Analytics agencies lead growth at 12.1%, while Creative and Content show a slower expansion at 6.1%
• Emerging specialisms signal sector evolution, with Amazon/Marketplace, Social purpose and sustainability, and Influencer agencies showing rapid expansion albeit from small workforce bases
• Regional specialisation creates distinctive cluster effects, for example 60.6% of the Scottish agency workforce in Digital and Technology or 21.1% in Northern Ireland working for Strategy and Research agencies
• London’s dominance varies significantly by subsector. Marketing Channels concentrate 67.2% of subsector workforce in the capital, whilst a comparatively low 40.1% of the Digital and Technology workforce is in London
• Glasgow City Region exemplifies the Industrial Strategy potential, with high growth and concentration of Digital and Technology agencies aligning with strategy priorities
• The division of the sector between creative services and technology-driven specialisms creates strategic implications on everything from skills development and investment to agency positioning

Overall agency workforce profile

Our latest mapping of the UK agency sector shows that it employs 283,966 people across 25,667 active agencies, with the agencies we have mapped showing an average 9.6% growth rate.

At the same time, the dramatic changes we are seeing within the sector due to what we might call the “triple disruption” of economic pressure marked by inflation and tightening client budgets, an era of media abundance and the rise of AI are certainly already beginning to show themselves within the employment data of the agencies we have mapped.

What does agency size reveal about workforce concentration?

The data reveals a distinctly polarised workforce distribution that might challenge some assumptions about agency employment patterns. While 39.9% of all agency workers are employed by the 165 largest agencies, who in turn represent just 0.6% of all agencies mapped, the majority of agencies remain small operations with significant employment impact.

• Nano, micro and small agencies (1-20 employees) account for 23.5% of workforce across thousands of businesses
• Mid-sized agencies (21-100 employees) employ 24% of the workforce
• Only 401 agencies (1.6% of all mapped agencies) employ more than 100 people.

This concentration suggests that two important things are happening at the same time: Large agencies dominate employment numbers, but the sector also maintains a substantial entrepreneurial base. 

When it comes to growth, it appears that the driver for the 9.6% growth within the agencies we have mapped is in these larger agencies. Agencies with a headcount of 251+ have a growth rate of 13.4%, followed by agencies with a headcount of 101-250 at 11.7%. This consolidation of the workforce and growth in such a comparatively small number of agencies is perhaps why the mood music often feels so different to the data as we uncover it. 

Subsector specialisation and growth dynamics

For the purpose of our analysis, we have mapped the 25,667 agencies across seven subsectors and within those, some 29 specialisms. It is important to remember that given the nature of our industry, individual agencies may appear in more than one of our subsector or specialism lists.

When it comes to subsectors, Digital and Technology agencies emerge as the dominant employment subsector, with 39.9% of the workforce employed by agencies within the 12,622 agencies within the list. Together, the Digital and Technology agencies we have mapped are showing an 11.6% growth rate, above the overall sector average.

But the growth patterns within the subsectors show some interesting dynamics:

• Performance and Analytics agencies show the highest growth rate at 12.1%, suggestions an increasing demand for data-driven marketing
• Creative and Content employs the second-largest workforce (27.7%) but shows slower growth (6.1%), potentially indicating market maturity
• Integrated and Full Service agencies show modest growth (6.5%) despite employing 11% of the overall agency workforce.

The data suggests the sector is dividing between traditional creative services and technology-enabled specialisms, which will have clear implications for agency leaders planning their next steps, investors and policy makers considering skills and development priorities. 

Specialisms driving the development of the sector

Within the subsectors we have mapped, if we dig deeper into the 29 specialisms we can get a more detailed picture on which corners of the agency sector are shaping its evolution. One thing that emerges almost immediately is that the highest employment growth within our mapped agencies is mostly happening in specialisms with small workforce share, with some notable exceptions.

High-growth specialisms include:

• Amazon/Marketplace with 25% growth and 0.7% workforce share
• Influencer with 19.3% growth and 1.4% workforce share
• Social purpose and sustainability with 18.8% growth and 1.4% workforce share
• Digital transformation with 17% growth and 13.7% workforce share

Established specialisms with substantial workforces:

• Agencies offering Digital services employ 17.6% of the workforce with 9.4% growth (close to the overall sector average of 9.6%)
• Creative and advertising employs 11.9% of the workforce with slower growth at 4.4%
• Website and UX/UI design employs 11.6% with a below average growth rate of 7%

These patterns suggest that the sector is still managing to maintain traditional creative disciplines, although many are showing below average growth rates, that the development of the sector is happening faster within technology-driven specialisms with an interesting outlier when it comes to sustainability and purpose-led communications. 

Regional workforce distribution

In mapping the 25,667 active agencies in the UK, we can divide them by their location based on both registered and operating addresses. In many cases, and in particular when it comes to the larger agencies who – as we have seen – employ a high proportion of the overall workforce, their staff will be distributed across a multitude of locations within the UK. Thanks to our partners at The Data City, we are able to estimate the total employees attributable to any specific location. 

What this shows, when we explore the agency workforce by ITL1 region, is that London remains the centre of gravity for the sector, with more than half of the total workforce (51.6%) employed in the capital.

How each subsector workforce is distributed by region

Although London contains more than half of the agency workforce as a whole, the distribution of the workforce across the UK regions is quite different when we analyse it by the seven subsectors we have mapped.

• Digital and Technology shows strong regional distribution, with only 40.1% of the workforce in this subsector located in London, compared to 51.6% of the sector as a whole
• Marketing Channels, in comparison, remains decidedly London-centric, with 67.2% of this workforce based in the capital
• Strategy and Research demonstrates relatively even distribution across the regions

How the workforce is distributed in each region by subsector

If we look at the percentage of the workforce within each region, some other interesting patterns emerge. Scotland, for example, shows distinctive characteristics:

• 60.6% of the Scottish agency workforce are employed by Digital and Technology agencies, compared to 39.9% nationally
• There is a lower representation in Marketing Channels, with 3.5% of the agency workforce in Scotland compared to 18.7% nationally
• There is an above average presence in Strategy in Research, with 10.1% of the workforce in Scotland compared to 8.3% nationally

Other notable findings when it comes to the workforce distribution in the different regions include:

• 70.8% of the workforce in the North East are employed by Digital and Technology agencies (compared to 39.9% nationally)
• 21.1% of the workforce in Northern Ireland are employed by Strategy and Research agencies, the highest proportion across the country
• Almost a quarter (24.6%) of the workforce in London are employed by Marketing Channels agencies

Subsector	East	East Midlands	London	North East	North West	Northern Ireland
Communications	17.0%	12.8%	19.3%	10.8%	18.5%	13.9%
Strategy and Research	4.2%	3.5%	8.4%	3.4%	10.3%	21.1%
Creative and Content	32.6%	26.3%	30.6%	17.3%	21.1%	19.7%
Digital and Technology	42.2%	47.0%	31.3%	70.8%	55.1%	41.3%
Marketing Channels	18.0%	12.0%	24.6%	7.8%	11.3%	15.6%
Performance and Analytics	17.1%	17.9%	11.8%	29.1%	18.3%	10.1%
Integrated and Full Service	14.1%	28.3%	9.0%	6.1%	13.1%	7.6%

Subsector	Scotland	South East	South West	Wales	West Midlands	Yorkshire and The Humber
Communications	14.4%	18.7%	14.3%	22.4%	14.0%	18.0%
Strategy and Research	10.1%	13.5%	2.8%	4.1%	12.6%	5.4%
Creative and Content	17.4%	23.4%	30.8%	15.0%	25.6%	24.5%
Digital and Technology	60.6%	36.3%	47.0%	49.7%	49.1%	56.3%
Marketing Channels	3.5%	15.3%	15.4%	3.7%	16.8%	9.7%
Performance and Analytics	10.7%	21.6%	17.8%	15.4%	16.5%	16.8%
Integrated and Full Service	10.1%	10.2%	11.0%	12.9%	17.0%	14.1%

About the data

Agency location can be presented in a number of different ways.

For regional distribution of agencies we use the United Kingdom’s ITL1 regions. This stands for International Territorial Level, a geocode standard for subdividing the United Kingdom for statistical purposes and is used by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Our partners at The Data City provide us with this data for agencies based on registered and operating addresses. If an agency has operating addresses in more than one region, it will be counted more than once.

We map the number of agencies in the UK agency sector together with our partners at The Data City, whose sophisticated machine-learning tool allows us to find and categorise active agencies after adjustment for dormant companies and those in liquidation or administration. Depending on the individual agency and the services they offer, agencies can appear in more than one of our subsector or specialism lists.

Data for employees / headcount is provided by our partners at The Data City based on reporting to Companies House. As there can be a lag in reporting, The Data City’s machine-learning platform can make an accurate best estimate. If an agency has less than three years reported data on employee number, no estimate is made and no data is reported.

Case study for the Industrial Strategy: Glasgow City Region

Within the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy, one of the key hubs identified for the creative industries and with a special focus on digital marketing, design and technologies, is Glasgow City Region. Altogether we have mapped 446 active agencies within the eight local authorities that make up the GCR, with a total attributed employees to these agencies of 2,398. The agencies mapped as being active in Glasgow show an overall employment growth rate of 18.6%, almost double the national average of 9.6%.

When we take a closer look at the agency landscape in Glasgow City Region, we can see that there are not only some distinctive characteristics of the sector in the GCR but also that specific subsectors are driving that growth:

• Digital and Technology agencies account for 67.6% of the agency workforce in Glasgow City Region compared to 39.9% nationally. They also account for more than half (53.6%) of all active agencies in the GCR
• These agencies have an employment growth rate of 21.8%. The only other subsectors with above national average growth rates are Strategy and Research (10%) and Performance and Analytics (9.7%)
• There is also a higher proportion of the workforce employed by Communications agencies (20.4%) than nationally (17.9%)

An interesting question for the GCR when it comes to the Industrial Strategy is how much it wants to lean in to those subsectors with a strong representation and growth performance in Glasgow, and how much it wants to encourage the subsectors where there are notable gaps compared to the rest of the UK agency sector.

Beyond the performance of Digital and Technology agencies in Glasgow City Region, the subsector growth rates for the mapped agencies show some interesting trends when it comes to those which are growing far below the national average (9.6%), most notably Integrated and Full Service agencies at a sluggish 2.4%.

Strategic opportunities for Glasgow City Region

Our analysis of the workforce data for agencies in Glasgow City Region suggests that there are strategic opportunities both for local government with regards the Industrial Strategy, local universities and skills development, as well as agencies themselves.

For local government, the Industrial Strategy’s £150 million Creative Places Growth Fund could support Glasgow’s existing digital strengths whilst addressing sector gaps. Local authorities should consider:

• Digital innovation hubs building on the region’s 67.6% digital workforce concentration
• Skills bridging programmes connecting digital expertise with traditional creative services
• Business support for scaling beyond the region’s current specialisation

When it comes to regional and local skills development, Scottish universities could consider aligning course offerings with sector realities:

• Data science and analytics programmes supporting the region’s digital concentration
• Creative technology courses bridging digital skills with content creation
• Business development modules addressing the gap in marketing channels expertise

As for agencies themselves, the strategic implications for those working in the GCR might include:

• Diversification opportunities into under-served specialisms like Marketing Channels
• Partnership development with London-based agencies to access broader client bases
• Innovation leadership in digital transformation services where the region shows strength

The data suggests Glasgow City Region has developed a distinctive digital-first agency sector that aligns well with Industrial Strategy priorities, but could benefit from targeted support to develop complementary capabilities and ensure sustainable growth beyond its current subsector specialisations.

Photo by Artur Kraft on Unsplash