‘A hard business’: UK’s illustrious ad industry tainted by burnout and inequality
F rom Nick Kamen in a launderette for Levi’s, Guinness’ fanatical surfer and Cadbury’s drumming gorilla to Christmas tear-jerkers from John Lewis, Britain boasts an illustrious and enviable pedigree when it comes to creating world-class advertising.
And yet, last year the UK ad industry recorded the biggest annual rate of staff turnover in more than a decade, as problems including burnout, pay, gender and racial inequality led to advertising losing its edge in the battle to attract and retain creative talent.
“The great resignation is real,” says Jon Williams, founder of The Liberty Guild, an international collective of advertising creatives founded to buck the traditional agency model.
“Take the rose-tinted glasses off, advertising is in a difficult place. It is hollowing out in the middle. There are lots of well-paid executives and piles of cheaper juniors. It is a hard business, where hours and not ideas can become your master, and the Kool Aid only lasts so long.”
In 2022, UK ad agencies reported a record 32.4% churn rate, according to the industry body the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), which has data back to 2011, almost certainly the highest-level since the redundancy-fuelled ad recession of 2009.
Outwardly, the IPA’s recently published annual census, which covers agencies accounting for more than 80% of employees in advertising, paints a rosy picture.
Employment levels are at an all-time high, up more than 19% on last year and breaking 26,000 for the first time, thanks to a post-pandemic boom among those seeking the excitement of a job in advertising.
However, behind the top line is a worrying undercurrent of a tough working culture with multiple industry executives describing what almost amounts to
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