PPC agencies.

The UK has roughly 387 agencies leading with PPC or paid media. They split into three buckets: boutique shops and freelance specialists charging £300-1,500 a month to manage smaller accounts, mid-market agencies running fuller paid programmes at £1,500-5,000, and large or network agencies handling enterprise spend at £5,000-20,000+ or 10% of media. Most charge a flat retainer, a percentage of ad spend (typically 10-20%), or a hybrid with a minimum monthly floor. PPC moves faster than SEO. Impressions and clicks land within hours of launch. The harder question is when performance stabilises, and the practitioner consensus is two to three months once Smart Bidding has enough conversion data to optimise against. That window is where the work actually lives. In 2026 the discipline has shifted decisively toward AI-led campaign management. Performance Max, AI Max (Google's September upgrade to Dynamic Search Ads), and Smart Bidding now do most of the optimisation. The agency's job is increasingly about clean conversion tracking, strong first-party audience signals, and creative quality, rather than keyword-by-keyword bid management. Below: the index, filtered down to whoever's actually doing the work.