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The In-House Talent & Salary Survey report

The first In-House Talent & Salary Survey specifically for UK in-house agencies.

To coincide with the publication of our survey results, IHALC and The Industry Club hosted a free online webinar, in which we shared the results of the survey, with analysis and discussion of key themes across salaries and freelance rates, talent resourcing and management, employee benefits and career development for in-house teams.


Alongside Patrick Burgoyne from IHALC, The Industry Club’s Managing Director Melissa Smith and Principal Consultant Zoe Edwards, discussed topics including:

  • The challenges of hiring for in-house agencies
  • How IHA pay compares to external agencies
  • Benefits offered by IHAs and how to use them to attract and retain talent
  • DE&I policies and the opportunities for IHAs
  • What strategies IHAs can use beyond pay, to promote the advantages of going client-side


With our partners, IHALC, we have created the first In-House Talent & Salary Survey for UK in-house agencies.


Although there is already considerable data on UK ad agency pay and benefits generally, very little was available for the in-house sector. This summer, IHALC invited senior leaders at UK in-house agencies to complete our Talent & Salary Survey to provide benchmarking data along with insights about their hiring and talent strategies and challenges.


Forty-eight respondents from businesses and organisations in the UK constituted a representative sample of IHAs according to size and remit, including industries like Charities, Media, FMCG, Financial Services, and Retail.


After compiling the survey results, we added our expert analysis to produce this downloadable report. Our findings were centred around five key topics:


Hiring and managing talent

We analysed how the responding IHAs hire their talent and manage freelancers and what specific challenges operating in a corporate environment brings when it comes to creative talent.


Pay and day rates 

Based on the responses received, we calculated 'typical salary ranges' and freelance day rates for titles across Creative/Design, Content/Editorial, Studio, Operation and Production, Client Services, and Strategy roles in-house. Because in-house teams are still reasonably diverse, additional context can be gained by comparing a range of roles across the three most common IHA types: Creative Studio, Creative Agency, and Lead Agency.


The Industry Club has further analysed how these ranges compare to external agency pay and day rates.


Benefits and Remuneration 

We have reviewed what benefits IHAs provide and how they compare to external agencies; we have also looked at how staff are graded, incentivised, and remunerated.


DE&I strategies and professional development 

We asked if IHAs have DE&I strategies in place, if they use external partners to help deliver them, and what IHA leaders do to train and develop their teams.


The In-House Advantage 

Finally, IHA leaders were asked to reflect on why talent is attracted to in-house and what the big opportunities are. With so many IHAs looking to evolve and expand their remit, we discuss how talent is vital in achieving those ambitions and what IHAs can do to compete for the best.

Download The Report
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