UK Hiring Market Update: Q2 2026

Our consultants give their read on the UK market through the second quarter of the year. After a cautious start to the year, the second quarter has felt a bit more alive. There is real movement in the market, and a lot of it comes from structural change rather than simple confidence. The senior comms role keeps gaining importance. AI is starting to bite, though not where you might expect. Agencies are consolidating and pushing talent in-house. And a change of Prime Minister has dropped politics back into the middle of a lot of client work. Briefs are still specific and the bar is high, but there is more going on than there was three months ago. Here is what the team has seen.

Comms and Corporate Affairs: A Bigger Job at the Top

The most senior communications roles keep taking on more, in both seniority and scope. Chief Corporate Affairs Officer is becoming the more common title, and the remit now often takes in government relations, analytics and AI transformation, alongside the usual communications work. A seat at the top table is taken as read rather than fought for.

AI is changing the function, but not from the top down. It is biting hardest at junior and execution-level work. The senior end is proving hard to automate, the judgement, the handling of stakeholders and the strategic counsel that mark out a good corporate affairs leader. The better-run organisations are using AI to give their senior people back some time for higher-value work, not to thin out the ranks.

What candidates want has moved on. Pay on its own is not closing offers any more. People are asking about leadership credibility, work with some purpose to it and more flexibility in how the role is done. At Director level and above, long-term incentives and performance-linked packages have become the norm rather than the sweetener.

The other thing worth keeping an eye on is agency consolidation. The recent run of M&A is changing which agencies are even still standing and how the rest line up against one another. As firms merge and restructure, experienced agency people are moving in-house, and that is putting good candidates into the market who were not there six months ago.

Marketing: More People, Higher Bar

There are more marketers available than there were, but that has not made hiring any easier. Clients know exactly what they want, the briefs are narrow, and the pool that fits stays small. A more open market has not loosened the standards.

The growth sits in one place above all. Analytics, data and tech-driven marketing roles are up around 12%, the fastest-rising part of the function by some way. Brand and strategy hiring is growing too, but modestly, more or less in step with inflation.

The marketers in demand are the ones who can speak the language of the finance director. Effectiveness, measurement, first-party data and CRM come up time and again. And at every level clients want people who will, as we keep hearing it put, “do the do.” The biggest shift of the last couple of years has been the move away from oversight towards hands-on delivery. In-housing is part of the same story, and we hear it from brands and agencies alike. First-party channels such as search, paid social, CRM and content production are being brought in-house, while agencies are kept on for planning, the big creative ideas and specialist media buying.

London and UK Public Affairs: Politics Back at the Centre

Public affairs has had a good quarter. Not frantic, but solid, with a clear pick-up in demand for political and policy advice as the geopolitical picture stays unsettled.

The strength is concentrated at the small and mid-size end, where a number of consultancies are having a strong year. The largest firms have found it harder going. Starmer’s resignation will probably cool things for a short while. Political upheaval tends to mean everyone is buried in client work, and when that happens recruitment slips down the list.

It should not stay that way for long. Once a new Prime Minister is in place, there will be a new cabinet and a fresh set of people to get to know. That kind of reset is usually a busy time for public affairs hiring, so a strong spell should follow the lull.

What This Means for Candidates and Employers

Q2 looks more confident than Q1, but no less demanding. Clients are hiring, in some areas keenly, yet they know precisely what they are after and will hold out for it.

The pattern runs across comms, marketing and public affairs. Senior people are valued for the judgement and delivery that AI cannot copy. The roles themselves keep getting broader. And candidates are weighing up far more than the figure on the offer. For anyone who can pair real credibility with a willingness to get stuck into the work, it is a good market to be looking in.

Whether you are hiring senior talent or weighing up your own next move, our team would be glad to help. We work across the UK, with businesses that need to move quickly and secure the right people in a market where the strongest candidates do not stay available for long.