Top 40 outside London

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his time last year Cardiffbased Freshwater took the top spot in the Outside London table. This year, Glasgow’s The Big Partnership has reclaimed the top spot it occupied in 2008’s league table.

The agency grew by one per cent, pushing its fee income up to £6.89m. Freshwater seems to have had a more difficult year, seeing fee income drop by 22 per cent to £5.45m. This was a stark contrast to 2008 when the agency’s aggressive expansion policy saw it grow by 44 per cent over the course of the year.

As with the main Top 150 league table, there are few clear trends to be drawn from the Top 40 outside London table, although more agencies saw their income increase than decrease. Surrey-based healthcare shop Virgo Health had a good year, posting growth of 17 per cent to take its

fee income to £4.1m. This reflects the trend throughout this year’s league tables of healthcare holding up well despite the economic climate.

The Whiteoaks Consultancy, a tech agency based in Surrey, also did well in 2009, growing by 41 per cent. We have looked at the agency’s performance in more depth in this year’s key performers section.

North West PR firm Paver Smith continued its consistently strong performance, showing growth of 36 per cent.

And Bristolbased Brey Leino also had a good year, growing by 17 per cent. Further down the table, Leeds-based Lucre saw an end to its year-on-year growth in 2009. In 2007 and 2008 it was the fastestgrowing agency outside London. However, this year its fee income dwindled by three per cent to £1.85m.

It was a difficult year for Primal PR, which saw fee income drop by 13 per cent, and for Coventry-based The Bridge Group, which posted a reduction in fee income of 27 per cent compared with 2008. Near the bottom of the table, Leeds-based Wolfstar was a powerful new entry to the Top 150 and the Outside London table. In 2009, the agency grew by 92 per cent, taking its fee income to £504,000.