Chapters
The Agency by Agency Atlas 2026 Gender and agency leadership
In examining gender and leadership across the UK agency sector, we are looking at who is founding and leading agencies. An agency can be founded by women, by men or by a mixed group, and the same applies to current leadership, and this is important to track not just who is starting agencies but who is sustaining leadership in them over time. The gap between these two measures is where we begin and is one of the most important stories in the chapter.
of agencies are
founded by women
of agencies are
led by women
of agency directors
are women
“That gap of nearly two to one sits behind every other data point in this chapter. Women-led agencies are less likely to attract investment, grow more slowly on average and receive a fraction of public innovation funding relative to their share of the sector.”
— The Agency by Agency Atlas 2026
Women are not leading agencies at the same rate they are founding them
One in five agencies in the UK was founded primarily by women. The figure of 21.0% is low by any measure of a profession in which women make up a significant part of the workforce. And then there is what happens next: The proportion of women-led agencies, as in those where women currently outnumber men in active director roles, is lower still at 19.7%. Women are entering agency leadership at the founding stage, and then leaving it, or being outnumbered within it, as agencies mature.
The overall director population reinforces the picture: just 32.2% of all agency directors across the sector are women, against 67.8% men. That gap of nearly two to one sits behind every other data point in this chapter. Women-led agencies are less likely to attract investment, grow more slowly on average and receive a fraction of public innovation funding relative to their share of the sector.
Yet they are also more stable, less likely to shrink fast, and, on the measure that most accurately captures economic value added, marginally more productive per head than men-led agencies. A question that we cannot answer but requires more study, is what the sector is losing by not retaining women in leadership, and what it would look like if the drop-off between founding and leading were closed while the proportion of both women-led and women-founded agencies increased.
Turnover per head and GVA per head tell two very different stories of gender leadership
The gap in turnover per head between men-led (£136,597) and women-led (£90,009) agencies is striking, with a difference of more than £46,000, or roughly 34%. Mixed-led agencies (£127,430) sit close to the all-agencies average (£129,899). Taken at face value, this would suggest a significant productivity disadvantage for women-led agencies.
Turnover-per-head by leadership gender
About the data
Turnover-per-head is calculated using total turnover and total number of employees. Data for turnover is provided by our partners at The Data City based on financial reporting to Companies House. As there can be a lag in financial reporting, The Data City uses sophisticated modelling to provide estimated turnover for the current year’s values. Where this is impossible, no data is reported.
Naturally, turnover should be treated carefully. Some types of agency, such as media, are more likely to include media billings and other campaign costs in the turnover figure they submit at Companies House. Our roadmap includes the development of benchmarking metrics to overcome this including revenue per head, gross profit and net asset value.
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.
Gender data for founders, leaders and directors of agencies is provided for us by our partners at The Data City, based on declared titles of officers at Companies House and the UK Government definition of Persons of Significant Control. The Data City does not use machine-learning to estimate gender.
A ‘women-led agency’ is a company with more active women directors than men directors.
A ‘women-founded agency’ is a company with officers appointed as a director within two years of it being incorporated. An agency can be only founded by women or men, or it can have mixed founders. A ‘women-led agency’ is a company with more active women directors than men directors.
But when we look at GVA per head as a measure of value added rather than revenue generated, this tells us a different story entirely. Women-led agencies record £95,475 in GVA per head, ahead of the all-agencies average of £94,447 and ahead of men-led agencies at £93,195. Mixed-led agencies lead at £98,230.
The turnover gap is real, but it appears to reflect differences in agency size, specialism and client mix, not an underlying deficit in value creation. Women-led agencies are generating economic value at a rate comparable to or marginally above their men-led counterparts, despite operating at a lower revenue scale. The pass-through effect identified in earlier chapters, where high turnover reflects bought-in costs as much as added value, is likely amplifying the apparent gap.
Estimated GVA per employee by leadership gender
About the data
GVA stands for ‘Gross Value Added’ and our GVA data is provided by our partners at The Data City and is estimated at the company level using official GVA (as defined by ONS) and employment data.
GVA-per-head is calculated based on the estimated GVA at company level and the number of employees / headcount, as 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.
Gender data for founders, leaders and directors of agencies is provided for us by our partners at The Data City, based on declared titles of officers at Companies House and the UK Government definition of Persons of Significant Control. The Data City does not use machine-learning to estimate gender.
A ‘women-led agency’ is a company with more active women directors than men directors.
A ‘women-founded agency’ is a company with officers appointed as a director within two years of it being incorporated. An agency can be only founded by women or men, or it can have mixed founders. A ‘women-led agency’ is a company with more active women directors than men directors.
Women-led agencies grow more slowly but are less volatile
Women-led agencies record an average growth rate of 2.6%, against 3.9% for men-led and 3.3% for mixed-led agencies, set against a sector average of 3.5%.
Average growth per year by leadership gender
About the data
Growth rates are provided by our partners at The Data City and are based on the annual headcount growth of any given agency we have mapped. Headcount growth is based on employee count data and turnover data, and to account for the 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 growth data is reported. Growth rates for any given cohort or list of agencies is based on the growth rates of active agencies only.
Gender data for founders, leaders and directors of agencies is provided for us by our partners at The Data City, based on declared titles of officers at Companies House and the UK Government definition of Persons of Significant Control. The Data City does not use machine-learning to estimate gender.
A ‘women-led agency’ is a company with more active women directors than men directors.
A ‘women-founded agency’ is a company with officers appointed as a director within two years of it being incorporated. An agency can be only founded by women or men, or it can have mixed founders. A ‘women-led agency’ is a company with more active women directors than men directors.
As we have seen in other chapters of The Atlas, the growth traffic light adds important nuance. Women-led agencies have the lowest proportion shrinking fast (2.9% versus 3.2% for men-led) and the highest proportion classified as stable (74.1%, versus 69.0% for men-led). Their fast-growing cohort (9.0%) is lower than men-led (11.3%) but comparable to mixed-led (9.6%).
The picture is of women-led agencies that are more risk-averse or more resilient, depending on the lens applied. They are less likely to be growing aggressively, but also less likely to be in serious decline. Whether that stability reflects conscious business strategy, the types of client relationships women-led agencies tend to build, the specialism mix of those agencies, or constraints on accessing the capital needed to accelerate growth, is a question that would need further study.
Growth rates by leadership gender
About the data
Growth rates are provided by our partners at The Data City and are based on the annual headcount growth of any given agency we have mapped. Headcount growth is based on employee count data and turnover data, and to account for the 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 growth data is reported. Growth rates for any given cohort or list of agencies is based on the growth rates of active agencies only.
Our ‘Growth Traffic Light’ breaks down the percentage of agencies in any given group that land in one of five growth rate categories: Shrinking fast (below -20% annual growth), Shrinking (-20% to -10% annual growth), Stable (-10% to 10% annual growth), Growing (10% to 20% annual growth) and Growing Fast (over 20% annual growth). If part of the chart is empty, this means that there were no agencies mapped in that particular interval.
Gender data for founders, leaders and directors of agencies is provided for us by our partners at The Data City, based on declared titles of officers at Companies House and the UK Government definition of Persons of Significant Control. The Data City does not use machine-learning to estimate gender.
A ‘women-led agency’ is a company with more active women directors than men directors.
A ‘women-founded agency’ is a company with officers appointed as a director within two years of it being incorporated. An agency can be only founded by women or men, or it can have mixed founders. A ‘women-led agency’ is a company with more active women directors than men directors.
Women-led agencies are underrepresented in investment funding
Women-led agencies account for 19.7% of active agencies but receive 16.7% of all investment funding. This is a gap that, while smaller than might be expected given the broader discourse on gender and investment, is nonetheless a meaningful underrepresentation. Men-led agencies receive 73.1% of investment against a 58.2% share of active agencies, which is a clear overrepresentation. Mixed-led agencies receive 10.2% against a 22.1% share, suggesting they are the most underserved group by investment relative to their prevalence.
The women-led figure, set in the context of the GVA per head data above, raises a pointed question: if women-led agencies generate comparable or superior economic value per employee, what explains the persistent investment gap? Size, specialism mix and the geography of investment infrastructure are all likely contributors, as are the well-documented structural barriers that women founders face in accessing growth capital across professional services more broadly.
Investment funding share by leadership gender
About the data
Our partners at The Data City provide us with data on investment funding via Dealroom.
Gender data for founders, leaders and directors of agencies is provided for us by our partners at The Data City, based on declared titles of officers at Companies House and the UK Government definition of Persons of Significant Control. The Data City does not use machine-learning to estimate gender.
A ‘women-led agency’ is a company with more active women directors than men directors.
A ‘women-founded agency’ is a company with officers appointed as a director within two years of it being incorporated. An agency can be only founded by women or men, or it can have mixed founders. A ‘women-led agency’ is a company with more active women directors than men directors.
A wider gap with innovation funding than investment
The Innovate UK funding picture is significantly more skewed than the investment data. Women-led agencies receive just 2.2% of all Innovate UK funding flowing to the sector, against their 19.7% share of active agencies. Men-led agencies receive 74.9%, and mixed-led agencies 22.9%.
Whether the women-led shortfall reflects lower engagement with Innovate UK application processes, a specialism mix that is less aligned with current innovation funding criteria, smaller average agency size (which, as Chapter 3 showed, correlates with lower Innovate UK engagement) or more structural barriers in how innovation funding is accessed, the scale of the disparity warrants serious attention from both the sector and from policy makers designing the innovation support mechanisms that sit at the heart of the Industrial Strategy.
Innovate UK funding share by leadership gender
About the data
Innovate UK grant funding data includes the total amount of grant funding to agencies we have mapped and the public descriptions of the successful funding bids.
Gender data for founders, leaders and directors of agencies is provided for us by our partners at The Data City, based on declared titles of officers at Companies House and the UK Government definition of Persons of Significant Control. The Data City does not use machine-learning to estimate gender.
A ‘women-led agency’ is a company with more active women directors than men directors.
A ‘women-founded agency’ is a company with officers appointed as a director within two years of it being incorporated. An agency can be only founded by women or men, or it can have mixed founders. A ‘women-led agency’ is a company with more active women directors than men directors.
Leadership gender and questions for the sector
The gender data in this chapter raises questions that cut across representation, economics and policy, and that do not resolve neatly in any direction.
For policy makers, the Innovate UK funding gap is the single most actionable finding in this chapter. A nearly tenfold disparity between women-led agencies’ share of active businesses and their share of public innovation funding is a sign that there is a misalignment in how innovation support is designed and accessed, and who is leading the agencies that might best benefit from it.
The Industrial Strategy’s Creative Industries Sector Plan cannot credibly deliver on its ambitions for inclusive growth without understanding why that gap exists and redesigning access accordingly as a concrete, achievable policy objective.
When it comes to investment and other opportunities within the sector, the GVA per head data is interesting and should perhaps prompt a reappraisal of how women-led agencies are evaluated. More than anything, the data suggests that a mixed leadership is delivering the best productivity results.
Understanding what happens between founding and the current leadership picture, whether women are leaving directorships, being outnumbered by new appointments or moving to advisory rather than executive roles, requires further research. A creative industry that loses women from leadership roles as it scales is not only becoming less equitable (from a low base to begin with), but is potentially also leaving economic value on the table.
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