The market continues to grow with London, promotions, job hunters and freelancers all benefiting. Employers and practitioners should prepare for what's to come.

The latest talent market data for the public relations industry shows that the COVID-19 pandemic recruitment boom has slowed but that the market continues to grow.

95,000 people are employed in the UK public relations industry according to LinkedIn data. 10,500 people have joined the profession in the UK in the past 12 months, but only 1,500 in the past nine months.

The market for public relations talent is a representation of the overall employment market in the UK. The issues in the economy in terms of a slowdown are evidence. The question for employers and practitioners is how best to insulate themselves against the recession.

Junior talent displaced by COVID-19 in 2020 has led to a shortage of talent with two-three years of experience. The mid-level talent shortage, along with high salary inflation, is driving rapid progression within roles.

There has been a disproportionate shift of practitioners into senior roles. An additional 5,500 practitioners have become managers, and 2,000 practitioners have become directors.

“We're seeing average salary increases of 8-10% across all levels and most sectors. It indicates that the public relations industry is ahead of general wage rises of 5.4% according to the ONS data for June to August,” said Rohan Shah, managing director, Reuben Sinclair.

“We’re also seeing a faster rate of progression through levels. For example, an account manager last year would typically have three years’ experience. Today we’re seeing people promoted to account manager with half that level of experience.”

The modest shifts away from London to other areas of the UK have been restored with employment in the capital showing strong growth. 45% of practitioners work in London, an increase of three percent over the past 12 months.

The public relations profession remains firmly focused on London as a centre despite progressive attitudes to flexible working, however there are strong regional clusters.

London accounts for 43,000 of practitioners. Manchester is the second largest community in the UK with 3,000 people employed in the industry. There are clusters of more than 1,000 practitioners in Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Leeds.

The market remains highly dynamic however job moves have also slowed. 4,500 practitioners have changed jobs in the past 90 days. This represents almost five percent of the overall workforce.

This is a reduced from a peak of 6,000 practitioners changing jobs in the previous 90-day period in January 2022. This represented more than six percent of the overall workforce. 

There is a growth of owners of public relations business in the past six month. This is likely to represent a shift to freelance work.

At Wadds Inc. we’re exploring longitudinal labour trends in the public relations and communications market in the UK following the COVID-19 pandemic. We’re using the LinkedIn dataset to identify and track fluctuations in monthly patterns. It is based on individual practitioners updating their own profiles and job movements.

This methodology provides insight into the dynamic nature of the profession compare with annual analysis. It has shown to be robust compared with data gathered using other methods by the PRCA Census and the CIPR State of the Professional report.