What’s the average hourly rate for UK agencies?
What percentage plan to increase their prices in 2015?
How are agencies increasing their profit margins?
How many will boost marketing spend?
How many plan to recruit?
When it comes to business growth, we can learn a thing or two from the UK’s top performing agencies across a variety of sectors from digital, advertising and content agencies to PR, media and marketing firms.
A report has just been released highlighting key trends, stats and averages, allowing UK agencies to benchmark themselves against their peers.
Who’s behind the survey?
Since 2012 the world’s most loved accountants, The Wow Company has been conducting their annual survey amongst independently owned agencies. Every year at Alive With Ideas we take the results and transform them into The Benchpress Report – insightful and inspiring benchmarking for creative agencies – and this year’s report doesn’t disappoint – it’s packed full of juicy nuggets and tons of top tips.
The majority of agencies (64%) who completed the survey employ between 1 and 10 employees with only 4% employing over 50 full time team members. 15% of these have big plans, intending to grow by over 50% this year whilst the majority, 41% of respondents, expect to grow by 11-25%.
What were the headlines and key trends from this year’s report?
The report explores the business activities that UK agencies are planning to undertake in 2015. So what will creative agencies be up to this year?
68% will be recruiting
‘If you’re still reliant on recruitment agents to find you talent, it’s time you diversified and formed relationships with colleges and universities and started networking regularly – face-to-face and online, looking for the talent to take your agency onto the next level.’
56% plan to increase their marketing spend
‘In an increasingly competitive market, you can’t afford to stand still. If you don’t have
a plan for your own marketing, it’s time to get one.’
51% will be increasing prices
According to The Wow Company, ‘if you haven’t increased your fees recently, it’s time you did so.’
21% plan to undertake more overseas work
Just over one fifth of UK agencies plan to engage in more work overseas from their current location.
What’s the average hourly rate for UK agencies?
The average hourly charge-out rate for UK independently owned agencies is £86 per hour.
47% will be forming strategic alliances with other agencies
According to Wow, ‘…some of our clients have won their biggest deals from relationships that started over a beer with someone originally thought of as a competitor. From these conversations, partnerships are formed, ideas are shared, pitches are worked on and projects are passed between them when resource is tight.’
How are agencies increasing their profit margins?
More agencies than ever before (currently 77%) are using project management or time tracking software to analyse and increase the profits that they make. The most commonly used packages are Streamtime, Basecamp and Harvest along with bespoke internal systems.
There’s loads more tips and thought provoking ideas within the report – how do other agencies price jobs, how are they getting more retainer work and how many charge extra when projects deviate from their original scope? Dive in to find out!
