Prolific North can finally reveal its highly anticipated Independent Agencies to Watch list for 2026, showcasing 15 exciting indie agencies emerging across the North.
Sponsored by national law firm Glaisyers ETL and agency management platform Synergist, this marks the fourth year of this initiative to celebrate ambitious, new Northern independent agencies who are creating the biggest waves as they grow, be that financially, creatively or as an employer.
All the agencies featured on this year’s list will come together for a special, celebratory roundtable event in Manchester tomorrow, with the full writeup to come next week, as they share their successes so far, while also tackling shared opportunities and challenges.
So meet our fresh list of Indie Agencies to Watch for 2026 below…
Prolific North’s Independent Agencies to Watch list 2026
*Please note this list is not ranked
Reign
Founded: 2025 | Location: Altrincham | Key clients: Expanding client roster
This specialist-led media planning and buying agency has had an impressive 12 months since Danielle Hewitt and Simon Rigby launched the business in August 2025.
Recently rebranded from Reigning Media to Reign to reflect the agency’s growth and evolution, the business has expanded from its two founders to a team of eight full-time staff in just a year. That growth, alongside a rapidly expanding client roster, has led to three office moves in just seven months, with Reign now based at Station House in Altrincham.
As the agency enters its second year, its focus is on strengthening its performance media capabilities across digital and traditional channels, while growing its client base across the tech, automotive, retail and healthcare sectors.
OneMay
Founded: 2022 | Location: Liverpool | Key clients: | Disney, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, Horlicks
Co-founded by Lee Weaver and Martin Porter in 2022, Liverpool-based creative agency OneMay has delivered two consecutive years of strong revenue growth, increasing turnover by 25% year-on-year in 2024 before growing by a further 40% year-on-year in 2025.
The agency has remained “deliberately small”, built around a founder-led, senior model where the people pitching the work are also the ones delivering it. That approach has seen the team build the Nala’s Baby brand from scratch and deliver licensed entertainment campaigns linked to major franchises including Star Wars and The Lion King, as well as snapping up five pitch wins over the summer.
Its full-time team of six works remotely on a flexible 32-hour week, with the agency proud to have built its team from within the Liverpool City Region. Alongside backing regional talent, giving back to the local community is also central to the business. Each year, the agency provides its creative work free of charge to support longstanding client Aimia Foods’ fundraising for Alder Hey Children’s Hospital.
Primo
Founded: 2025 | Location: Leeds | Key clients: LOVE Corn, Miniml, Known Nutrition
This straight-talking Leeds-based marketplace agency is on a mission to rewrite the traditional agency playbook with “Northern grit, genuine sector expertise and a unique focus on making our clients self-sufficient”.
Launched in 2025 by Adam Aubrey, former head of ecommerce at sports nutrition brand Warrior, alongside agency veterans Rob Powell and Duncan Colman, Primo has already hit £200,000 in annual recurring revenue at a 20% net profit in its first year. That growth has been entirely organic, including securing long-term deals with major FMCG players.
Its small team of specialists, many with in-house brand experience, helps FMCG, health and nutrition businesses “actually” make money through marketplaces. But Primo’s ambitions extend beyond client growth. The agency is building a team of “ambitious rising stars” with ownership over client success and is investing in the next generation through digital marketing apprenticeships, giving new talent hands-on experience across Amazon SEO, advertising and data analysis.
OffType
Founded: 2025 | Location: MediaCity, Greater Manchester | Key clients: Chery Group, The Motor Ombudsman, Lamb Weston, Vertu Motors, and Ben, the automotive industry charity.
Self-funded and founded by Mariam Aslam-Digger in 2025, brand, creative and experiential agency OffType is already off to a flying start. Already growing to a team of three, the business is on track to turn over £250,000 in its first year.
Aslam-Digger launched OffType with a clear idea: the traditional agency model is broken and the automotive sector deserves better. So she set out to build something different, bringing together people who have worked across both marketing and automotive and understand the sector from the inside.
It seems to be paying off as in its first year, the agency has already built an impressive roster of clients and is now looking to build on that early momentum.
BrandXYZ
Founded: 2024 | Location: Manchester | Key clients: North East Combined Authority, Survitec, Thermatic, First Internet alongside other public sector and purpose driven brands
After decades of experience in agency land, Jo Taylor made the leap in-house to Transport for Greater Manchester, where she led the brand strategy and rollout of the Bee Network, one of the most significant public transport transformations in decades. In 2024, she went it alone and launched BrandXYZ, a senior-led “super agency” blending big agency expertise with a flexible network of partners to build impactful, purpose-driven brands.
And she’s seen success after success ever since. In its first year, BrandXYZ more than doubled its turnover target and secured more than seven regional and national clients. Almost two years on, that growth has continued, supported by a core network of nine freelancers and five agency partners, with Taylor also building a people-first culture that fairly rewards the talent behind the work.
With no big office or traditional agency headcount, BrandXYZ is showing that a smaller, senior-led, more flexible model can do more than just compete with bigger, older agencies. And, as Taylor puts it: “We’re only just getting started.”
adam+gary
Founded: 2023 | Location: Manchester | Key clients: The Ryder Cup, Kia UK, Primark, The London Marathon
As plenty of good agency stories probably do, adam+gary started as an idea over a pint. After more than 20 years working together across various agencies, where creative duo Adam Johnson and Gary Bannister-Simm developed their own distinct style of VFX and video, they had grown tired of the politics, red tape and Microsoft Teams. So, in 2023, they decided to venture out on their own.
What started as two people with a big dose of passion has grown into a rapidly growing business that now delivers everything from TV to TikTok. The duo concept, shoot, direct and VFX supervise, then edit, animate and deliver for a mix of global giants and challenger brands. By staying intentionally small, they don’t compete with other agencies but work alongside them, adding specialist expertise where it’s needed. Over the past 12 months alone, they’ve doubled their agency partners, including Leith, 50 Sport and SocialChain.
Along the way, adam+gary have picked up numerous awards and industry accolades and created campaigns that have “broken the internet”, but consistently delivering has been the real driver of growth. The duo completed an impressive 50 projects over the past 12 months, with their 2025/26 forecast showing top-line revenue growth of 43.76% year-on-year. They also capped off the first half of the year by being crowned Production Company of the Year at the Prolific North Creative Awards 2026.
WE-COM
Founded: 2025 | Location: Newcastle | Key clients: Harry Hall, Bazaar Group’s homeware brand icon (across four international markets), multi-brand group H&H (including brands Zesty Paws and Aurelia Cellular) and uppbeat.io
After seven years at Evolved Search, rising through the ranks from head of SEO to managing director and CMO, Tom Etherington helped grow the agency from around 14 people to more than 60 staff and annual revenue to over £4m.
In 2024, he set out on his own with ecommerce digital marketing agency WE-COM, promising clients direct access to senior marketers and channel specialists through a small core team backed by a network of specialist freelancers. Since fully launching in September 2025, the self-funded business has moved into its first Newcastle office and promoted its first hire, James Mechan, to director and shareholder.
Rather than building a large traditional headcount, Etherington has created WE-COMMUNITY, an impressive network of more than 50 specialist ecommerce freelancers who can be brought into projects as needed. The hybrid model focuses heavily on culture, with regular in-person strategy days alongside training, support, and social events for its wider community. That expertise is attracting industry attention too, with established agencies bringing WE-COM in as a senior delivery and training partner. The agency is also developing its own AI tools internally to support strategy, delivery and measurement, while deliberately keeping human expertise at the heart of the model.
CreativeHutch
Founded: 2021 | Location: Carlisle, Cumbria | Key clients: Invacare (with a large brand portfolio – Küschall, Matrx etc), Employee Ownership Association (EOA), Cumberland Council, Peter Tyson
Since launching in 2021, brand, marketing and design agency CreativeHutch has grown from two founders, Vicky Hutchinson and Carol Wallace, into a core team of 10, supported by freelancers and working with regional, national and global clients. But for Hutchinson and Wallace, growth has never just been about landing bigger projects.
Based in Cumbria, the agency is on a mission to prove that creative talent doesn’t have to leave the region for bigger cities and that businesses don’t need to look elsewhere for high-level strategy, brand, design and marketing expertise. That mission took another step forward over the past year when CreativeHutch opened a coworking space, creating not only a home for its growing team but a wider hub for Cumbria’s creative community. The space is designed to offer a supportive environment for creatives, freelancers and remote workers, while its HutchLabs initiative gives start-ups and small businesses support to build stronger foundations.
The agency also mentors people starting out in business through its work with the British Library, offers work experience and internships, and supports people with disabilities into the workplace through the Right to Work programme. For CreativeHutch, it all feeds into a bigger ambition: to keep more talent, skills and creative opportunity in Cumbria while showing that ambitious agency businesses can be built there too.
Duo Consulting
Founded: 2022 | Location: Manchester | Key clients: Defaqto, Manchester Building Society, SafetyCulture, Vypr
Founded by Dan Sheridan in 2022, Manchester PR and strategic communications agency Duo Consulting was created as an alternative to the traditional agency structure. Its people-first model is built around senior freelancers, typically bringing together six to eight consultants at any one time from a wider network of 15 specialists.
Four years on, that model is delivering growth too. Duo increased turnover by 26% in its latest financial year while remaining profitable, building a client base that spans ambitious North West businesses and international companies expanding into the UK. Recent wins have also seen the agency support inward investment and help forge stronger links between international businesses and the region, including with tech unicorn SafetyCulture, which moved to Duo after previously working with a traditional London agency.
Duo has already picked up numerous industry awards, including being crowned Micro Business of the Year at the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce Excellence Awards in 2025. But for Sheridan, one of the biggest wins has been growing the business without losing what made Duo different in the first place. At a volatile time for the industry, that growth has meant more consistent work and greater security for its network of self-employed consultants, while still giving them the flexibility the agency was built around.
Marriott Communications
Founded: 2022 | Location: Sunderland | Key clients: The Scottish Government, Comet ML, British Council
Founded by Forbes 30 Under 30 finalist Samuel Marriott-Dowding in 2022, Marriott Communications has spent the past 12 months reshaping the business for its next stage of growth.
Originally launched as a PR and marketing agency, the three-strong team has repositioned as a strategic communications and advisory firm, developing a new structured advisory model and launching what it describes as the North East’s first Intelligence service.
The shift has come alongside some major project milestones. Marriott Communications says its work for the 2025 North East International Film Festival generated more than 90m publication views, while the agency has continued to build out its strategic offer.
And Marriott-Dowding isn’t shy about where he wants to take it next. His ambition is to build one of the UK’s most respected independent strategic communications and advisory firms, all from its base in Sunderland.
EDGEY
Founded: 2023 | Location: Manchester | Key clients: Hospitality brands
After more than a decade spent working in hospitality marketing, Jack Edge and the team behind performance marketing agency EDGEY decided to switch sides of the table in late 2023 and build an agency specifically for the sector they knew best.
Three years on, EDGEY now leads performance marketing for more than 30 brands and over 200 venues across the UK. Its growing client roster spans national bars, restaurants and late-night operators, with the team on a mission to change the way the hospitality sector “does” digital.
It’s been a fast rise for the specialist agency. EDGEY has grown to a team of six, with plans to double its headcount by February 2027, and was named New Agency to Watch at the Prolific North Champions Awards 2026.
Ginger Fury
Founded: 2024 | Location: Leeds | Key clients: TransPennine Express, Health & Happiness Group, Brass Monkey, Zesty Paws, Biostime Nos Marques
When Jay Dickinson set up Ginger Fury in late 2024, she had a simple belief: in the age of AI, the brands that win won’t be those producing the most, but those that understand their customers best.
That idea has become the foundation for her Leeds-based strategic marketing agency, which was founded in 2024 and officially launched in 2025 to help organisations better understand their customers and turn those insights into strategies that drive commercial growth.
Since launching, Ginger Fury has worked with 15 brands and achieved a 100% repeat-business rate, with every client returning for at least one additional project. Along the way, its core team of two senior strategists has been joined by a growing network of 10 specialist contractors.
Ginger Fury has deliberately kept that model lean, bringing in specialist expertise when it’s needed rather than building the layers and overheads of a traditional agency. And with demand continuing to grow, this indie agency is forecasting that its revenue will double in its second year.
Resultful
Founded: 2024 | Location: Liverpool | Key clients: Microsoft Partners
Liverpool-based Resultful has carved out a clear niche since launching in 2024 and has been building a reputation as the go-to marketing agency for Microsoft Partners.
Led by Nathan Selby, the agency uses insights alongside sales and marketing data to help Microsoft-focused businesses shape clearer strategies and stronger campaigns. And after a period of building steadily, Resultful is starting to dial things up a notch.
Over recent months, the agency has expanded its team with a digital marketing executive, a head of brand and content who previously worked at Active Profile and a senior designer, while also promoting an existing team member to digital marketing manager.
Selby has described the shift as moving from “building slowly” to scaling up, with “plenty more” in the pipeline. And if that momentum continues, further hires could be on the cards as Resultful looks to grow from Liverpool.
Yasper
Founded: 2023 | Location: Leeds | Key clients: First Bus North & West Yorkshire, Isles of Scilly Steamship Group, Xypher
After almost two decades working in PR, Julian Pearce decided to go it alone in 2023, launching Leeds-based PR and stakeholder engagement agency Yasper with backing from established agency Umpf.
Three years on, the agency has grown year-on-year, picking up work across sectors including property, tech, infrastructure and transport, with clients that include the likes of First Bus. A run of significant client wins has also sparked a hiring spree, including bringing former TheBusinessDesk Yorkshire editor Kayley Worsley into the team earlier this year.
With the agency’s specialism in media relations and political communications, Yasper has found its niche and is steadily building from its Leeds base.
Next Chapter
Founded: 2022 | Location: Leeds | Key clients: DT Sports, Patchett Joinery, Meson Electrical Services, Northern Energy, DENTON
Leeds-based Next Chapter, co-founded by Charlie Hartley and Daniel Swepson in 2022, has had a busy few years. Last year, the agency unveiled a new focus as a specialist partner for B2B and professional services brands, alongside making the move from Harrogate to a new headquarters at Wellington Place in Leeds.
Now a team of eight, Next Chapter has had a flying start to 2026 too, securing a string of major new client partnerships. And there’s plenty more chapters to come, with the agency continuing to invest in talent, technology and sector expertise as it sets its sights on becoming the “go-to B2B marketing partner for businesses in the North and beyond”.
