19 Sep 2024

State of the UK Profession 2024

Recently the UK Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) published their annual ‘State of the Profession’ report an industry-wide research study exploring issues and challenges faced by the public relations profession in the UK.

Here are some key findings from the report:

7 out of 10 in-house professionals (who took part in the study) said their organisations are positive about the value and strategic contribution of the role of public relations.
For the first time ever, AI and its impact on the profession was identified by practitioners as the major challenge for the industry and the area with the biggest skills shortage. Over half of PR professionals said they are using AI ‘often’ or 'sometimes'. Those working in-house in the private sector are most likely to use AI daily.
A major shift in income, workload, and organisational dynamics was seen with a decrease in the average annual full-time income from £56,340 (€ 67,158.47) in 2022 to £53,052 (€ 63,239.10) in the UK this year.
The majority of agency respondents indicated that fees have significantly or moderately increased, although around one in 10 reported a decline. Consultancy and agency respondents were more likely than independent practitioners to have increased fees. Independent practitioners did report a higher tendency for fee stability.
There were more vacancies reported by consultancy and agency respondents than in-house practitioners, with nearly twice as many describing the process of filling those vacancies as somewhat or very challenging, compared to their in-house counterparts.

Click here to read the full report.