Spending on advertising rose 6.4 per cent last year. Employment in the agencies fell 6.8 per cent.

Start with the newest release, because it is six days old.

The Advertising Association and WARC published their quarterly Expenditure Report on 30 July. UK advertising investment rose 9.3 per cent year on year in the first quarter of 2026, to 11.7 billion pounds. Search took the largest share of that at 4.6 billion, up 9.8 per cent. The full-year forecast was revised upward, to 8.2 per cent growth and 50.5 billion pounds in 2026, and 53.5 billion in 2027.

The settled figure for last year comes from the same publisher's refreshed report of 30 April. UK advertising investment in 2025 was 46.7 billion pounds, up 6.4 per cent, the fifth consecutive year of growth.

Now the people. The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising counts the staff of its member agencies in a census now in its sixty-sixth year. Measured at 1 September 2025, those agencies employed 24,963 people, down from 26,787. A fall of 6.8 per cent. One dating point to hold before the comparison: the census measures the twelve months to 1 September, while the expenditure figures are calendar years. Broadly the same period, not identically.

So the market that pays for British advertising grew, and the firms that make it shrank.

The split underneath that is what makes it worth reporting. Creative and other non-media agencies fell from 14,775 to 12,659, down 14.3 per cent. Media agencies rose from 12,012 to 12,304, up 2.4 per cent. Same clients, same market, same twelve months, opposite directions.

It is a break in trend rather than a continuation. The year before, creative agency employment had gone up, from 14,698 to 14,775, and the IPA said in its own release that overall staff numbers had continued to grow.

Three further measures split along the same line. Open vacancies fell 47.2 per cent at creative agencies and 34.7 per cent at media agencies. Staff turnover rose to 27.6 per cent at creative agencies and fell to 21.7 per cent at media agencies. And when the census asked whether agencies expected to reduce their workforce over the next twelve months as a direct result of AI, 30 per cent of creative agencies said yes against 10 per cent of media agencies.

Now the cautions, and there are four.

The census counts only agencies in IPA membership at 1 September 2025. If membership itself fell, part of that 6.8 per cent is composition rather than job loss. This desk could not establish the number of member agencies in each year and says so rather than working round it.

Second, a job that moves from an agency to a client's own marketing team leaves the census without leaving the country. In-housing has been running for a decade and the census cannot see it.

Third, consolidation. Omnicom and Interpublic merged in November 2025. Putting two holding companies together removes duplicated roles whatever any machine can do.

Fourth, the company most quoted on this subject proves the least. WPP cut permanent headcount by 8.7 per cent last year, from 108,044 to 98,655. Its revenue fell 8.1 per cent in a market that grew 6.4, so WPP is losing business as well as cutting cost, and its numbers are a company story before they are a technology one.

One more thing this desk owes you. On 25 July we reported that AI was named in one British job advert in six, 15.57 per cent, using ITJobsWatch. This week Indeed published 9.4 per cent as a record high. Both are right. ITJobsWatch counts advertised permanent vacancies weighted towards technology roles, which we said at the time, while Indeed counts the whole posting base, so the narrower and more technical slice gives the higher number. Our position has not moved: the premium on the skill is eroding as the skill becomes a condition of entry rather than a ladder.

What survives all of it is the split. In-housing, consolidation and one company's bad year do not explain why the half of the industry that makes the advertising fell 14.3 per cent while the half that buys the space grew 2.4.