With combined turnover of £1.42bn and almost 9,500 recorded staff, Prolific North’s Top 150 Agencies list offers a snapshot of a substantial business community as new research reveals changing expectations of the work agencies deliver.
Agencies featured in Prolific North’s new Top 150 ranking account for combined turnover of more than £1.4bn and a recorded workforce of almost 9,500, revealing the scale of the businesses shaping the North’s agency sector.
The figures bring together major employers and smaller specialists with almost two-thirds of the agencies recording fewer than 50 staff. However, the ten largest businesses by turnover account for nearly 45% of combined revenue.
For the first time, Prolific North has brought its PR, digital and integrated agency rankings together into one Top 150. The resulting list provides a broader view of businesses whose work crosses creative, communications, media, technology and marketing.
READ MORE: The Prolific North Top 150 Agencies 2026: Full list
It is a snapshot rather than a census of the entire Northern agency economy. But it provides a starting point for understanding the scale of the businesses featured – and asking what their contribution means beyond their own balance sheets.
Alexandra Balazs, managing director of Prolific North, said: “These figures confirm what many in the industry have long felt: the North’s agency landscape is both a heavyweight economic power and an agile innovation engine. With £1.42bn in combined turnover and nearly 10,000 specialist staff, Northern agencies are competing at a scale that can no longer be viewed through a purely regional lens.
“Bringing these three rankings into a single Top 150 dataset is a game-changer for us. It strips away sector silos – digital, PR, integrated – to give us the first true, holistic view of the market. It reveals a wonderfully balanced ecosystem: a powerful tier of market leaders anchoring almost half the region’s revenue, supported by a dynamic, fast-growing long-tail of agile independent outfits and ambitious newcomers.”
The collective picture
| Measure | Top 150 snapshot |
| Combined turnover | £1.42bn |
| Recorded headcount | 9,484 |
| Median agency turnover | £3.58m |
| Agencies recording fewer than 50 staff | 98 — almost two-thirds |
| Turnover represented by the 18 newcomers | £57.45m |
| Recorded headcount at those newcomers | 507 |
These figures capture the agencies’ own business activity. Their work also reaches into client organisations, through campaigns, communications, customer experiences and digital services.
That wider contribution is not quantified by the ranking. Establishing it would require additional evidence about client outcomes, supplier spending and other economic effects.
It is nevertheless an important part of the story: what do businesses gain from the expertise represented by this £1.42bn group?
A sector built on businesses of different sizes
The largest agencies account for a substantial proportion of the combined figures. APS Group records the highest turnover, at £152.84m, and the largest headcount, at 724.
But the list is also populated by smaller employers. Ninety-eight agencies record fewer than 50 staff, while only five record 250 or more.
| Recorded headcount | Number of agencies |
| Fewer than 10 | 6 |
| 10–49 | 92 |
| 50–249 | 47 |
| 250 or more | 5 |
| Total | 150 |
The difference between average and median turnover illustrates that spread. Average turnover stands at £9.46m, while the median — the midpoint of the list when ordered by turnover — is £3.58m.
There is considerable scale at the top, alongside a much larger population of smaller businesses.
| Agencies ordered by turnover | Combined turnover | Share of Top 150 turnover |
| Largest five | £421.51m | 29.70% |
| Largest ten | £634.01m | 44.68% |
| Largest 20 | £827.68m | 58.32% |
*These groups are ordered by turnover, not overall ranking position.
The newcomers add another dimension. The 18 agencies explicitly identified as new entrants collectively record £57.45m in turnover and 507 staff.
Those are existing businesses entering the ranking, rather than revenue or jobs newly created this year. Their inclusion broadens the picture of the businesses represented.
Phil Gripton, partner at Waypoint, a global growth and M&A advisory firm specializing in creative, tech, digital, data, media, consulting and communications businesses, said: “The most telling figure in this year’s rankings isn’t the total turnover, it’s the gap between the average and median agency size. It suggests the northern market is evolving into two economies: a small group of scaled agencies capturing a disproportionate share of value, and a long tail of highly specialised independents. As AI and outcome-based buying continue to reshape client expectations, agencies that can articulate commercial impact rather than simply activity will be best placed to grow.”
How clients value agency work is changing
The scale revealed by the ranking comes as advertisers reconsider how they pay agencies.
Research published by the World Federation of Advertisers and Agency Mania Solutions found that labour-based models were the standard approach for 19% of surveyed multinationals, down from 54% in 2011. Fixed-fee or output-based models rose from 20% to 33% over that period.
The study covered 69 multinational companies with combined global marketing spending of $147bn. It describes that sample’s commercial practices, rather than payment arrangements across the North.
It also found that 89% believed they received value for money from agencies, while 48% felt they had sufficient transparency into agency costs and profitability. Briefing, trust and feedback were rated more important to agency performance than financial incentives.
AI adds another dimension
A separate WFA study, based on 54 senior respondents from 46 major brand owners with collective advertising spending of $93bn, found that 96% reported using generative or agentic AI.
Applications extended beyond content: 72% used AI for research and insights, 54% for media buying or optimisation, and 48% for strategy and planning.
Yet only 13% reported a great deal of visibility into agency AI use, while 69% required agencies to disclose when they used it.
These findings suggest questions about both capability and confidence. Where can agencies help clients apply new technology effectively? And how can they explain its role in the work clients commission?
The Top 150 provides a measure of business scale. The next question is how the people and expertise behind those figures help clients grow – and how agencies sustain their own businesses as expectations change.
About the figures: Totals use the current turnover and headcount recorded for the 150 agencies in the ranking research. The dataset combines reported figures and estimates across differing accounting periods and business boundaries. Headcount is not a verified count of jobs physically located in the North. Combined turnover is not a measure of GDP contribution or the total economic impact of the entire Northern agency sector.
