Frequently asked questions

Agency by Agency provides a comprehensive, independently maintained map of the UK’s marketing, advertising, creative and media agency sector. We have mapped and track around 25,000 active agencies across 29 specialisms, using data built from the ground up from registered and operating addresses at Companies House, enriched with capability, size, ownership, growth and financial data.

We use that mapping to help people find agencies, and to help agencies get found. We deliver intelligence as bespoke research, ongoing advisory services or real-time data and we publish analysis of the sector through the Agency by Agency Atlas and our archive of reports and articles.

Our commercial services are used by anyone for whom finding the right agency, or understanding the agency sector, matters. That includes brand-side marketers and procurement teams building pitch longlists, corporate development teams and holding groups running acquisition programmes, private equity investors assessing the market, media owners and adtech and martech suppliers looking to reach agencies beyond their existing networks and policy makers and combined authorities seeking to understand the creative economy in their region.

We also work with agencies themselves, helping them to check and verify their presence in our data, so that the right buyers can find them.

We map the UK’s marketing, advertising, creative and media agency sector. This includes agencies across 29 specialisms. Depending on the services an agency offers, it may appear in more than one subsector in our mapping.

The specialisms we have mapped:

• Amazon/Marketplace
• Behavioural research and behaviour change
• Brand strategy
• Content
• Conversion
• Copywriting
• Creative and advertising
• Customer Experience (CX)
• Data and marketing analytics
• Design and branding
• Digital
• Digital product design
• Digital transformation
• Direct marketing
• E-commerce
• Experiential and events
• Influencer
• Integrated and full service
• Internal communications and employee engagement
• Market research
• Media
• PR and communications
• Search and performance
• SEO
• Social media
• Social purpose and sustainability
• Translation and localisation
• Video and production
• Website and UX/UI design

Most agency directories are self-selecting: agencies choose to list themselves, pay to appear or are included based on who makes the most noise. Our mapping works differently. Working with our partners at The Data City we identify active agencies based on matching company websites with Companies House registrations, which means our data is comprehensive rather than curated by commercial interest. We then enrich that foundation with capability, size, growth and ownership data.

The result is a picture of the market as it actually is, including the under-the-radar independents that never appear in conventional directories and that AI tools frequently miss or misrepresent.
We are also independent. We do not take success fees, we do not sell listings and we have no vested interest in any transaction outcome. Our commercial model is built entirely on the value of our intelligence.

No. We are an independent research and intelligence business. We have no ownership or financial relationships with any agency, holding company or network. This independence is central to what we do, particularly for clients who need objective intelligence to inform acquisition decisions, investment cases or procurement processes.

We offer a number of core services built on our agency mapping:

Bespoke agency intelligence. Curated, filtered lists of UK agencies matched to your brief, by specialism, capability, size, location, ownership, growth trajectory and more. Used by brands, media owners, adtech and martech suppliers and corporate development teams.

Agency Radar. A continuously updated intelligence service tracking growth signals, new entrants and market dynamics across your priority capability areas. Used by acquirers, holding groups and media owners who need ongoing rather than one-off intelligence.

Advisory. Independent, outcome-agnostic guidance on capability fit, market sizing, strategic context and acquisition intelligence. We have no success fees and no conflicts of interest.

We also undertake commissioned research and bespoke sector analysis, including regional mapping for combined authorities and public bodies, as well as data-led editorial for organisations seeking authoritative thought leadership about the agency sector.

This is one of the most common briefs we receive. Finding independent agencies, and in particular those that are under the radar, not actively marketing themselves and not already known to the holding groups and PE firms looking to acquire, is genuinely difficult using conventional methods. Google surfaces the loudest, not the best. AI tools are unreliable when it comes to specific agency names and capabilities.
We approach this differently. Because our mapping is built from Companies House data and enriched with capability and growth signals, we can filter the market systematically against an acquisition thesis, including by specialism, size, growth rate, geography, ownership structure and more. We then apply expert judgement on top of the data: flagging opportunities, qualifying fit and, where needed, providing ongoing radar monitoring so that new entrants and changes in the market are caught as they happen.

Yes. We build bespoke longlists and shortlists of agencies filtered to your brief. Whether you are looking for a specific capability, a particular size of agency, geographic coverage, independent ownership or a combination of criteria, we can filter our mapping accordingly and deliver a verified, structured dataset. We can include director and ownership data, size and revenue range, growth trajectory, capability profile and more.

Yes. Our mapping and intelligence services have been used by combined authorities and public bodies seeking to understand and engage with the creative economy in their region. The UK’s Industrial Strategy identifies the Creative Industries as one of eight priority growth sectors, and Agency by Agency’s independently maintained data on the marketing, advertising, creative and media agency community provides a level of detailed, verifiable intelligence that is not available elsewhere. If you are a policy maker, LEP, combined authority or sector body, we would be pleased to discuss how our mapping can support your work.

The Agency by Agency Atlas is our annual report based on our comprehensive mapping of the UK agency sector. It draws on our full dataset to build a detailed picture of the sector, covering agency numbers, size, growth, subsector specialisms, geographic distribution, ownership, financial performance, diversity and more.

The Atlas is the public expression of the intelligence that underpins our commercial services. It is designed to be a lasting reference resource for anyone seeking to understand the shape and scale of the UK agency community, including policy makers, journalists, investors, agency advisors and agencies themselves.

The Agency by Agency Atlas is available to read in full with a free account.

Alongside the Agency by Agency Atlas, we also periodically publish dedicated reports and articles on a variety of topics, including independent agencies, agency workforce, growth, regional agency hubs and more. All our reports and articles are based on our full sector mapping and data enrichment.

Explore the entire archive of reports and articles.

Yes. We have produced bespoke commissioned research for a range of clients, from regional mapping for public bodies to sector analysis for investors and data-led editorial for commercial clients. Commissioned reports are produced for your exclusive use and can be tailored to your specific questions, geography, subsectors of interest or strategic context. Get in touch to discuss your requirements.

Our clients, including brands, acquirers, holding companies, media owners and adtech and martech suppliers, use our data to find agencies. They filter by capability, specialism, size, location, growth rate and ownership. The agencies that appear in their searches are the agencies in our data. Being present and accurately represented means you can be found by buyers who are actively looking for agencies like yours, without you needing to reach them directly.

Client-side marketers use our capability filters to build pitch longlists. Corporate development teams and holding companies use our data to build M&A target lists. Private equity firms and agency groups scan our mapping for complementary acquisition opportunities. Media owners and technology suppliers use it to find agencies for partner programmes. In all cases, the agencies they find are those in our data, including under-the-radar specialists who would not surface through Google or conventional routes.

We have a number of quality assurance and verification methods. This includes random sampling and checking against other reliable data sources, statistical analysis and regular manual review of the data.

We map active agencies in partnership with The Data City, whose machine-learning platform identifies and categorises agencies by matching company websites with Companies House registrations, adjusting for dormant companies and those in liquidation or administration. An agency can appear in more than one subsector list depending on the services it offers.

Independent agencies are those that do not belong to one of the ‘Big Seven’ holding companies, namely Dentsu Group Inc, Publicis Groupe SA, Stagwell Inc, The Interpublic Group of Companies Inc, Vivendi SA, Omnicom Group Inc and WPP PLC, based on company registrations at Companies House.

Turnover data is provided by The Data City based on financial reporting to Companies House. Because there can be a lag in financial reporting, The Data City uses modelling to estimate current-year values where direct data is not yet available. Where this is not possible, no data is reported. It is important to note that turnover figures should be treated with care: some agency types, particularly media agencies, may include media billings and other campaign costs in the turnover figure submitted to Companies House.

Employee and headcount data is provided by The Data City based on reporting to Companies House. Where there is a reporting lag, The Data City’s platform makes an estimated best assessment. No estimate is made for agencies with fewer than three years of employee data on record, and no headcount data is reported for those agencies.

Growth rates are provided by The Data City and are based on annual headcount and turnover growth. Employee count data is more commonly available than turnover data, and The Data City’s platform accounts for reporting lags through modelling. No growth data is reported for agencies with fewer than three years of employee data. Growth rates for any given group of agencies are calculated using active agencies only.

The Growth Traffic Light is Agency by Agency’s framework for categorising agencies by their annual growth rate. It divides agencies into five categories: Shrinking Fast (below -20%), Shrinking (-20% to -10%), Stable (-10% to 10%), Growing (10% to 20%) and Growing Fast (above 20%).

A high-growth agency is defined as one with an annual growth rate of over 20%, based on headcount and turnover growth data provided by The Data City.

A scale-up agency meets the OECD definition: at least four years of employment data, more than ten employees at the start of the growth period, a time span of at least three years between the first and last data points, and an average annual growth rate of 20% or more.

GVA stands for Gross Value Added. Our GVA data is provided by The Data City and estimated at company level using official GVA methodology as defined by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), combined with employment data. GVA-per-head is calculated from the estimated GVA at company level divided by the number of employees.

Agency location can be presented in different ways. For regional distribution, we use the UK’s ITL1 regions, the International Territorial Level geocode standard used by the ONS for subdividing the UK for statistical purposes. For city-level data, we use OECD-defined Functional Urban Areas (FUAs), which comprise a core city and its commuting zone.

Location data is provided by The Data City based on registered and operating addresses. Where an agency has operating addresses in more than one region, it will be counted more than once.

Mapping the sector in this way means we can create location-based lists based on any number of different definitions, from combined authorities and Westminster constituencies, to bespoke definitions (M62 motorway corridor, travel distance from a defined location or any number of other possibilities).

Gender data for founders, directors and leaders is provided by The Data City based on declared officer titles 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 defined as a company with more active women directors than men directors. A women-founded agency is one where women were appointed as directors within two years of the company being incorporated.

Keyword data is provided by The Data City, which maintains a list of sector-relevant keywords and matches them against the website text of agencies in our mapping. Meta description data is also sourced this way. ESG statement data is derived from keyword analysis of agency websites and subpages.

A Location Quotient measures the relative concentration of agencies or agency employees in a given area, adjusted for the size of that area. A Location Quotient of 1 indicates that an area has the number of agencies or employees you would expect given its size relative to the UK as a whole. A value of 2 means twice the expected concentration; a value of 0.5 means half. This allows meaningful comparisons between areas of very different sizes.

Investment funding data is provided by The Data City via Dealroom. Innovate UK grant funding data covers the total amount of grant funding awarded to agencies in our mapping, and the public descriptions of successful funding bids.