Bench Press 2025 – Key Findings

What does it take to build the UK’s most trusted benchmark for independent agencies?

We spoke to Rory Spence, Head of BenchPress at the Wow Company, about how the UK’s largest benchmarking survey for independent agencies came to life, how it’s evolved over the years, and why it’s become an essential resource for agency leaders across the country.

Sure! BenchPress is the UK’s largest benchmarking survey for independent agencies. It’s something we’ve been running at the Wow Company since 2012, and it’s grown into a big part of what we do. Each year, we ask thousands of agency owners to share insights into how they run their businesses—everything from financial performance and pricing to people, leadership, marketing, and even wellbeing.

The goal is to provide agency owners with the kind of data they typically don’t have access to. It’s so hard to know how you’re doing when you don’t have a frame of reference, and that’s what BenchPress provides. We package up all the findings into a report and share them back with the community, completely free of charge.

Over time, it has become more than just a report—it has become a resource that agencies actively use to shape their strategy, set targets, and even justify decisions to their teams or boards. We’re always looking for ways to make it more useful, whether that’s through live events, deeper data segmentation, or specific themed reports throughout the year.evolved into more than just a report—it has become a valuable resource that agencies actively utilize to inform their strategy, establish

It all started from conversations with our clients. We kept hearing the same thing from agency owners: “I don’t know if what we’re doing is good or not. I don’t know what ‘normal’ looks like.” People were making decisions based on gut feel, or what they heard in the pub from another agency owner, but that’s not always reliable.

So we thought, what if we could collect that data in one place and make it easy to compare? We started small—just sending out a simple survey to our clients and sharing the results with them. But even from that first version, the response was positive. People loved having something tangible to benchmark against.

As more agencies got involved, we realized there was a real appetite for this kind of transparency and collaboration. And because we’re accountants by trade, we had access to the types of numbers that aren’t usually talked about publicly—things like profit margins, owner pay, and agency valuations. So, we leaned into that and made it our mission to share those insights with the broader community.

That’s something we put a lot of thought into. It’s not enough to throw a load of stats at people—we want them to do something with them. So we work hard to present the data in a way that’s easy to digest and, more importantly, actionable.

We break down the data by agency size, because what’s relevant to a 10-person agency may differ from what’s relevant to a team of 50 or 100. We also extract insights that reveal why certain metrics are important—for example, if we discover that agencies with higher profit margins also tend to invest more in their marketing, we highlight this correlation and explain its practical implications.

We support the report with a comprehensive ecosystem of content. We host webinars and in-person events where we discuss the key trends. We publish blogs and videos that focus on specific areas, such as pricing strategies and recruitment trends. And we’re always looking to keep things practical—so it’s not just “here’s what’s happening,” but also “here’s what you could do about it.”

It’s changed a lot! Initially, it was very manual—we’d send out a basic survey, collect the responses, and manually crunch the numbers in Excel. Now, we’ve got a whole team involved, and we use more advanced tools to analyze and visualize the data. That’s allowed us to go deeper and make the insights more interactive and engaging.

We’ve also expanded the scope of the survey. Early on, it was very finance-focused, with a focus on profit margins, turnover, and similar metrics. However, over time, we’ve begun exploring broader themes that matter to agency leaders. Things like employee wellbeing, diversity and inclusion, confidence in the economy, the impact of AI—you name it. We want the report to accurately reflect what’s happening in the industry, not just what’s on the balance sheet.

One of the most notable aspects is that we now have over a decade of data, allowing us to track the industry’s evolution. We can identify trends, such as changes in average salaries or fluctuations in agency confidence, that are influenced by the economic climate. That historical context is particularly valuable when planning for the future.

There’s a lot I love about it, but what stands out is the feedback we receive from agency owners. People tell us all the time that BenchPress helped them make a tough decision or gave them the confidence to try something new. Whether that’s increasing prices, hiring a new role, or even exiting their business, it’s amazing to hear that the report played a part in that.

I also love the sense of community it creates. Running an agency can be lonely, and sometimes it feels like you’re the only one dealing with certain challenges. BenchPress shows that’s not the case. There’s something really powerful about seeing your struggles reflected in the data and knowing that other people are going through the same thing.

And finally, I thoroughly enjoy delving into the numbers! I’m a bit of a data nerd, and there’s always something surprising in the results—something that makes you go, “Huh, that’s interesting.” It sparks great conversations and helps us all get better at what we do.