SEO companies in United Kingdom

What retainers actually start at in United Kingdom

Median entry retainer is £5k/mo, with the range running £4k/mo to £8k/mo. These are floors, not averages of what clients spend — scope, competitiveness and content volume move the real number well above them.

Floors shown in GBP, as published or disclosed by each company.

How the Hub Score on this page is calculated

100 points across five factors, each computed from a fact you can check yourself. Nothing here is bought, voted on or averaged from review sites.

• 25 ptsTenure — round(years trading ÷ 25 × 25), capped at 25. 25+ years = full marks. Surviving multiple algorithm eras and at least one recession is the most reliable public signal that delivery is repeatable rather than lucky.
• 20 ptsService breadth — 3 points per in-house discipline, capped at 20 (7+ services = full marks). Each discipline you have to buy elsewhere adds a hand-off. Breadth is not automatically better, but it is a fact buyers price in.
• 20 ptsVertical depth — 4 points per industry served, plus an 8-point focus bonus when the company serves 2 or fewer. Capped at 20. A clear position scores well at both ends: deep specialists know a vertical's SERP, broad shops carry pattern library across many. Vague middle ground scores lowest.
• 20 ptsPricing transparency — 8 points for a monthly-retainer model (6 for other models) + 7 for a stated retainer floor + 5 for a live public site. Agencies that will not name a number until the third call cost buyers weeks of qualification time.
• 17 ptsDelivery scale — Team size mapped to a curve: 10-20 → 8, 20-50 → 11, 50-150 → 14, 150-250 → 16, 250-500 → 17, 500+ → 15. The curve peaks in the mid-hundreds: enough bench depth to survive staff churn, small enough that senior people still touch the account. Very large shops lose a point for delivery distance.

In-house services across United Kingdom

Share of listed companies delivering each discipline themselves. Gaps here are the work you would need a second vendor for.

• Technical SEO10 · 100%
• Content Marketing9 · 90%
• Analytics5 · 50%
• Digital PR5 · 50%
• Paid Media5 · 50%
• Enterprise SEO3 · 30%
• Web Development3 · 30%
• Conversion Optimization2 · 20%

Where the vertical depth sits

Industries the listed companies document real work in — useful when you want a shop that already knows your SERP.

• Ecommerce10 · 100%
• Financial Services6 · 60%
• SaaS & Technology6 · 60%
• Manufacturing & B2B5 · 50%
• Education4 · 40%
• Hospitality & Travel4 · 40%
• Automotive2 · 20%
• Healthcare2 · 20%