Flagship research · UK Agency Survival & Churn Index
36.7% of UK agencies founded in 2019 were still active five years later
How long UK marketing, creative, advertising and digital agencies actually last, tracked cohort by cohort from ONS Business Demography data, and compared against the all-industries UK average.
Key findings
- Of the 27,325 agency-cluster enterprises born in 2019, only 36.7% were still active five years later, roughly 63 in every 100 had closed, against a 38.4% average across all UK industries.
- That combined figure hides a wide spread. Advertising (44.0%), market research (46.8%) and specialised design (46.1%) each individually beat the all-industries average, but IT consultancy (34.5%), the largest segment by far, sits below it and pulls the weighted combined figure down.
- Public relations (SIC 70210) cannot be measured separately in this release: it sits inside a broader management-consultancy ONS group and is excluded from the combined figure rather than diluting it with an unrelated population (see methodology below).
- 95.0% of the 2023 cohort survived their first year, in line with the 93.4% all-industries figure. The first year is where agencies and the wider economy look most alike; the gap opens up from year 2 onwards.
Source: Office for National Statistics, Business Demography (Tables 5.2a-5.2e), under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Figures may be cited with attribution to Agency Founder Finance.
The survival curve: 2019 birth cohort
Of every 100 agency-cluster enterprises that started trading in 2019, the chart tracks how many were still active at each anniversary, against the same measure for all UK industries combined.
Survival by agency segment
Each row is a different agency-isolable SIC group, tracked against the 2019 birth cohort. IT consultancy is by far the largest segment by births, which is why it dominates the combined weighted figure above.
| Segment | 2019 births | 1yr | 3yr | 5yr |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Advertising (SIC 731, incl. media representation) | 2,625 | 95.8% | 61.1% | 44.0% |
| Market research (SIC 732) | 235 | 97.9% | 68.1% | 46.8% |
| Specialised design (SIC 741) | 2,735 | 95.4% | 63.6% | 46.1% |
| IT consultancy (SIC 620) | 21,730 | 96.0% | 54.4% | 34.5% |
| Agency combined (weighted union) | 27,325 | 96.0% | 56.1% | 36.7% |
| All UK industries | 363,825 | 94.6% | 55.9% | 38.4% |
1-year survival rate over time
The one figure available for every cohort in the series is 1-year survival for the combined agency cluster, tracked across all five published birth-year cohorts.
Methodology and sources
Survival rates are ONS's own published enterprise-level birth-cohort survival figures (Tables 5.2a-5.2e), read directly from the finest Standard Industrial Classification 2007 group breakdown ONS publishes for each segment: not re-derived or estimated. An 'enterprise' birth is a new business appearing on the Inter-Departmental Business Register in a given year; survival is measured against VAT/PAYE registration remaining active at each anniversary. Each birth-year cohort (2019 to 2023) can only show survival up to however many years have elapsed since that release: the 2019 cohort has the full 5-year curve, the 2023 cohort only 1-year. The combined 'agency' curve sums raw births and survivor counts for the four agency-isolable groups (731, 732, 741, 620) before dividing, so it is an exact weighted figure, not an average of the four percentages.
Enterprise, not company. This is a different unit and a different source to our UK Agency Formation Index and UK Agency Insolvency Index, which both track Companies House limited companies specifically. The ONS enterprise measure is broader: it includes sole traders and partnerships registered for VAT or PAYE as well as limited companies. The datasets are not directly comparable and should not be combined into a single figure.
Caveats
- Advertising (731) is reported as a single ONS group covering both SIC 73.11 (advertising agencies) and 73.12 (media representation); ONS does not split these two 4-digit codes further in the survival tables.
- Public relations (SIC 70210) is NOT isolable in this release. It sits inside 3-digit ONS group 702 (management consultancy activities) alongside general management consultants, who vastly outnumber PR agencies. Group 70 is reported as context only in this dataset and is deliberately excluded from the combined 'agency' survival curve, because folding it in would swamp the genuine agency-cluster figure with an unrelated population.
- 620 (computer programming, consultancy and related activities) is the finest cut ONS publishes for division 62: it covers both CH SIC 62012 (business and domestic software development) and 62020 (IT consultancy) with no further split, and also includes some software agencies that are not marketing or creative agencies in the everyday sense.
- SIC group counts are enterprise-level, not company-level: a single agency with multiple trading entities or a sole trader/partnership registered for VAT or PAYE is counted the same way as a limited company, unlike the Companies House-based UK Agency Formation Index, which counts incorporated companies specifically.
- Counts are control-rounded to base 5 by ONS disclosure control, so small percentage movements between adjacent cohorts can reflect rounding as much as real change.
- Only the 2019 birth cohort has a complete 5-year curve in this release; later cohorts (2020 to 2023) are shown only as far as ONS has published, so the 1-year-survival trend across cohorts is the fairest recent-years comparison.
Updated. Tables 5.2a-5.2e were last published 2025-11-20. Data generated 2026-07-23.
Business Demography 2024 reference tables (Tables 5.2a-5.2e) (Office for National Statistics)
Download the survival data (CSV)
Free to cite and republish with attribution to Agency Founder Finance. This page is a data summary and does not constitute tax or business advice on any individual situation.
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Frequently asked questions
What does the UK Agency Survival & Churn Index measure?
It tracks cohorts of newly-born UK enterprises (businesses registered for VAT or PAYE in a given year) in the agency-isolable SIC groups: 731 (advertising, including media representation), 732 (market research), 741 (specialised design) and 620 (computer programming and IT consultancy), and measures what percentage are still active 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 years later. The data comes from ONS Business Demography Tables 5.2a-5.2e. Each birth-year cohort is tracked independently, so the most recent cohorts only have 1 or 2 years of survival data published so far.
Why is the combined agency survival rate below the all-industries average?
The combined agency curve is a weighted figure across four very differently-sized groups, and IT consultancy (SIC 620) is by far the largest, 21,730 of the 27,325 agency-cluster births in the 2019 cohort. IT consultancy's own 5-year survival rate (34.5%) sits below the all-industries average and pulls the combined figure down with it, even though advertising (44.0%), market research (46.8%) and design (46.1%) each individually beat the all-industries average on their own.
Can public relations agencies be measured separately?
Not with this ONS release. SIC 70210 (public relations and communications activities) sits inside the 3-digit ONS group 702 (management consultancy activities) alongside general management consultants, and ONS does not publish a finer split in the Business Demography survival tables. Because management consultancy births vastly outnumber PR agency births, that group is reported as context only and deliberately excluded from the combined agency curve here, rather than diluting a genuine agency figure with an unrelated population.
Is this the same as the UK Agency Insolvency Index?
No, they measure different things from different sources. This survival index tracks the share of a whole birth-year cohort of ONS-defined 'enterprises' (which includes sole traders and partnerships, not just limited companies) still active at each anniversary, for any reason a business might close. The Agency Insolvency Index counts formal insolvency events among Companies House limited companies specifically. A sector can have a high number of insolvencies and a middling survival rate at the same time: insolvency is only one route out of the population this index tracks.
Where does this data come from?
The Business Demography release from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), specifically Tables 5.2a to 5.2e, 'Survival of newly born enterprises, Standard Industrial Classification (SIC2007) group.' It is published under the Open Government Licence v3.0 and updated annually, typically in November. Figures are control-rounded to base 5 by ONS before publication.
Does this mean my agency is likely to survive?
The survival rates are averages across the whole SIC group and say nothing about any individual business. Survival depends heavily on factors this dataset cannot see, including cash-flow management, client concentration, pricing discipline and how a founder draws money from the business, exactly the areas where an agency-specialist accountant adds the most value. Our team works with agency founders on the practical side of that.