Creative hubs: Exploring the 15 biggest agency cities

Up to now in our mapping of the UK agency sector we have focused on ITL1 regions when it comes to looking at agency clusters or hubs. But we can explore the data of the UK’s marketing, advertising, creative and media agencies in many different ways, so we decided to take a closer look at the 15 biggest agency cities in the country, based on the number of individual agencies based there.

Of course, there are a number of ways we could have decided to select our “15 biggest agency cities”, but for the purposes of this article we used the number of registered agencies (companies) within the OECD-defined functional urban areas (FUA) in the UK. An FUA is composed of a core city and its commuting zones, and based on this definition the following UK cities are the top fifteen when it comes to the number of individual, active agencies (number of registered agencies in brackets):

• London (9340)
• Manchester (1265)
• Leeds (1006)
• Birmingham & Wolverhampton (738)
• Brighton & Hove (489)
• Bristol (475)
• Glasgow (353)
• Liverpool (305)
• Edinburgh (299)
• Newcastle upon Tyne (274)
• Oxford (266)
• Leicester (255)
• Nottingham (244)
• Cardiff (239)
• Sheffield (234)

The total number of 17,526 active agencies across these fifteen cities is 68.7% of all active agencies: more than two thirds of all agencies can be found in these fifteen agency hubs.

Where are the highest concentrations of agencies?

Of course, the raw number of individual agencies doesn’t take into account, for example, the fact that London is several times larger than Brighton & Hove or Oxford. To get a sense of which of the fifteen have the highest concentration of agencies, we can look at what is known as Location Quotient. This is a measure of relative concentration of agencies in an area, based on the overall number of agencies and relative populations of each city, with 1 being what you would expect if agencies were spread evenly across the nation as a whole. A value for 2 means you are twice as likely to find an agency in an area as you would across the nation as a whole, and 0.5 means you are half as likely.

Unsurprisingly, with these being the cities with the highest number of active agencies, the location quotient for all was at least 1.0, with the highest concentration of agencies based on the population of the city being Brighton & Hove, with 3.6.

Where are the agency jobs?

The concentration of the agency sector as a whole across these 15 cities is even more apparent when we look not at the number of individual agencies but the number of people they employ. Altogether, agencies in these creative hubs provide work for 197,200 people or 74.4% of all agency employees in the UK. 

In terms of individual cities, London leads the way with 51.3% of all agency employees, followed by Manchester (5.9%), Leeds (3.6%), Bristol (3.2%) and Edinburgh (2%).

Once again, the relative size of the agency employment market in each city can be examined via the Location Quotient for agency employees. Here we see Bristol, as well as Brighton & Hove, with more than three times the number of agency jobs than would be expected for cities of their size.

Which creative hubs are growing?

The agency sector has seen a slowdown in new agencies being founded since a peak in 2019 (see our Agency by Agency Industry Report – Spring 2025), but one way to look at the growth of the agency scene across the 15 cities is to investigate how many of the agencies we have mapped are new, i.e. are three years old or under.

Here there are some striking results. Almost a quarter (23.5%) of all agencies in Cardiff are classed as new agencies, with Leicester (12.7%) also showing a proportion of new agencies that is higher than the sector as a whole (10.7%). The fact that the other 13 cities we have mapped have a proportion of new agencies lower than the sector average, suggests that the agency scene in these creative hubs is well established.

When it comes to growth rates, based on the overall growth of employees and turnover across all agencies we have mapped, the UK agency sector average is 7.3%. Here we can see that there are seven of our 15 cities that are outperforming the sector average, with Birmingham & Wolverhampton (17.8%) and Glasgow (17.5%) leading the way.

Which cities are the most productive?

These fifteen cities have a major economic impact when it comes to the contribution of agencies to the UK economy. These fifteen cities account for 81.4% of total turnover in the UK agency sector and account for 85.4% of the sector’s contribution to the overall economy when measured by GVA.

Of our creative hubs, seven are showing a higher GVA-per-head than the sector average of £77,438 (Agency by Agency Industry Report – Spring 2025), with Oxford (£90,090) outperforming all the other fifteen cities. London, as the largest agency city by some margin (and however we choose to measure it), shows a GVA-per-head of £79,195, just above the average.

Conclusion – The impact of the UK’s creative hubs

The 15 cities we have identified as the UK’s creative and agency hubs have a major impact on the agency sector as a whole: 

• These creative hubs account for just over two thirds of all agencies in the UK and almost three quarters of all agency employees.
• We can see that Brighton & Hove, Bristol and Oxford all have a higher proportion of agencies and agency employees than the size of the cities would suggest, and are in the top six of the 15 when it comes to GVA-per-head. 
• New creative hubs are being developed. With almost a quarter of all agencies in Cardiff three years old or less, it is unlikely that the Welsh capital would have made this list in 2020.
• The highest growth rates are to be found in cities where there is clearly space for the agency sector to grow into, including Birmingham & Wolverhampton, Glasgow and Manchester.

The data reveals a UK agency sector that remains heavily concentrated in established creative hubs, with London maintaining its central role while regional centres demonstrate varied patterns of growth and specialism. This concentration suggests both opportunities and challenges: while established hubs benefit from deep talent pools and industry networks, emerging centres like Cardiff offer growth potential with fewer competitive pressures.

The standout productivity of cities like Oxford, Brighton and Bristol indicates that mid-sized cities can foster highly efficient agency ecosystems in places that are attractive to live. As the sector evolves, it might be that we see greater distribution of agency activity outside London, with Birmingham, Glasgow and Manchester positioned as growth leaders. For the sector as a whole, these patterns suggest that it remains important to have regional strategies that acknowledge each city’s unique characteristics and strengths.  

FAQs

For an overview of our methodology, the work with our partners at The Data City, and a glossary of definitions for all our data points, please take a look at our FAQs page.

Photo by Lulu Black on Unsplash