PR firms' 10% surge on bounceback

Britain's top public relations firms saw fee income surge an average of almost 10% last year as the industry bounced back from recession.

Bell Pottinger Group, part of Lord Bell's Chime Communications, again topped the annual survey by PR Week, with its fees jumping 13% to £67.8 million.

Top City PR firm Brunswick, led by Alan Parker, was in second place with an estimated £53.2 million.

Other leading agencies to increase revenues included Edelman, with fee income up 12%, and Freud Communications, up 6%.

Some firms declined to give financial information for the survey but PR Week estimates average growth at 9.2%, with the top 150 agencies generating £842 million last year.

PR Week editor Danny Rogers said: "Near-double-digit growth in a 12-month period when the wider UK economy barely grew at all, is an admirable achievement.

"About half of all the UK's PR agencies achieved double-digit fee growth last year. This remains a highly buoyant sector of the British economy."

City PR generates the highest fees, with the survey calculating the average member of fee-earning staff generates £280,000 per head, compared with a general consumer PR bringing in around £100,000.

According to the survey, one of the fastest-growing PR firms was Farringdon-based We Are Social, specialists in social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, with fee income up 190% to £2 million.

Some other agencies struggled in the tough economic climate, particularly as the Government slashed marketing spend.

Kindred, whose clients have included the Department for Business and the NHS, saw its fee income halve to £3.5 million because of public-sector cuts.