How can we level up regional public relations in the UK?

The public relations boom of the past three years is over. London has been the main beneficiary despite strong regional growth.

Public relations was elevated in management during the COVID-19 pandemic. It experienced rapid growth as it helped organisations tackle the public health emergency.

Health communicators within the NHS were at the frontline of the crisis. Practitioners worked with management teams to retool supply chains and manage complex stakeholder environments. It supported the shift from office to home working.

Wadds Inc. has been tracking employment data in the public relations industry using LinkedIn data since the second COVID-19 lockdown in the UK in November 2021.

LinkedIn is a good proxy for a professional employment market. Public relations practitioners report their role and employment location as part of their profile.

In the first 12 months of the pandemic, the UK public relations industry grew from 84,500 to 99,000 practitioners although it has remained static since this peak.

I had a hunch back in 2021 that COVID-19 would act as a lever to level up the profession and help reduce its London-centricity. I was right, at least initially, but the situation is rapidly reversing.

Throughout the pandemic, we observed the movement of practitioners from London to cities and towns throughout the UK. When everyone was working from home, it didn’t matter whether they were in Arsenal or Aberdeen; Bermondsey or Bristol; Canada Water or Coventry.

Practitioners that had spent their careers working in London moved out of the city. Recent graduates returned home. Older practitioners made life-changing decisions to relocate.

Two years on the data shows a mixed picture as organisations insist that practitioners return to the office and the number of remote roles has reduced.

The population of public relations practitioners in the capital has grown from 37,000 to 46,000. No other region comes close to its pace of growth.

There are strong communities of practitioners outside of London, almost all of which have benefited from growth, but all of which are a fraction of the size of the London market.

Manchester (2,500) is the largest market outside of London, followed by Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Leeds, all with around 1,000 practitioners. Belfast, Brighton, Glasgow, Liverpool and Newcastle are also strong.

The continued dominance of London as a centre for public relations practice in the UK raises important questions.

Practice should represent the organisations and communities that it serves. This isn’t a modern woke agenda. It was firmly established as best practice by management research over fifty years ago.

The cost of living crisis makes living in London inaccessible for all but the most privileged young people, except for a small number of forward-thinking organisations which have adapted their business model to flex. Regional and socioeconomic diversity is an important part of this story.

The movement of public relations practitioners around the UK due to COVID-19 was a temporary phenomenon. The profession will never level up in the sense of being regionally equitable, but it would be a mistake for the progress made during the pandemic to revert or for us to fail to recognise the quality of practice outside the capital.