The Prolific North Top 50 PR Agencies 2018

The ranking is anchored on financial information taken from Companies House, as well as financial reporting company fame BVD, and also draws upon data submitted and verified by the agencies themselves including additional financials, headcount, client information and – where appropriate – confidential private background information.

We started with an initial longlist of over 200 PR agencies to be based in or have offices in the North, and we then drilled down in more depth on the accounts of around 120 agencies.

These were ultimately whittled down to the 50 in the ranking below.

Citypress on top once more

For the fourth year running, Manchester-headquartered Citypress takes the top spot, with Weber Shandwick moving up a place to second.

Tangerine ensured that Mancunian agencies filled the top three spots with Leeds agency Finn Communications holding on to fourth place and Altrincham’s Barret Dixon Bell fifth.

Beyond the top five, there were a number of significant risers. Manchester’s Carousel jumped seven places into the top 10 at ninth, while Leeds-based Hatch rose eight places to 10th.

Special mentions should also go to Social Communications (up 14 places to 11th), Cleveland’s DTW (up 21 places to 15th), Leeds’ Prohibition (up 20 places to 17th), Roland Dransfield (up 14 to 19th) and Umpf (up 14 places to 24th). 

We did not give agencies the option of being included or not. This does mean however that sometimes larger, or indeed, smaller agencies, can have unusual years which can inflate or hurt their performance in a given year.

And once again, integrated or digital agencies with significant PR operations such as Amaze and McCann’s have not been included because this ranking is dictated by the agencies’ prime offering: PR and comms.

Finally, many thanks to all the agencies who have so helpfully supplied us with information and data, as well as responding to our questions where required.

The Prolific North Top 50 PR Agencies 2018

in association with Good Relations

2017 ranking in brackets