Shock (not shock), our industry is in a bit of a mess.
Big agencies have sliced thousands of roles, UK agency creative headcounts are dropping, and the number of open vacancies has plummeted. Meanwhile, candidate ghosting is rife and freelancers complain of stalled or falling day rates.
Statistical doom-mongering aside, we need to talk about what this actually feels like on the ground.
Behind this bleak picture lies a deeper, human crisis. We’re watching the wholesale hollowing-out of creative teams, the systemic ghosting of talented professionals, and a race to the bottom driven by automated recruitment processes and generic, mass-produced content.
As a senior freelancer who has spent years working with agencies and corporate clients, I find this all infuriating. Not just because it harms hard-working colleagues, (many of whom I’ve worked with and rate highly), but because it’s an act of commercial self-harm for the clients we serve.
Look at how we got here. Major holding companies, squeezed by margin pressures, trimmed headcounts to save spreadsheets. But the work didn't vanish; it was simply pushed onto exhausted internal skeleton teams or dumped downstream into the freelance market. At the same time, HR departments automated candidate intake. AI application tools flooded job portals with synthetic CVs, which led recruiters to deploy automated filters that quietly bin human talent. The result? Total silence. Professionals with decades of experience are left shouting into the void, receiving radio silence after three rounds of interviews and delivering on an unpaid pitch brief.
Then came the generative AI rush. In a frantic bid to cut costs, marketing departments jumped on automated tools to churn out high-volume content. The result is an ocean of beige blandness. B2B comms are instantly recognisable: slick, hollow, and utterly indistinguishable from the competitor down the road. When everyone uses the same algorithms to draft their thought leadership, everyone sounds like a generic corporate bot.
This is where the logic breaks down. Clients don’t need more volume. In complex B2B sectors, where buying cycles are long and decisions carry high operational risk, buyers don’t respond to generic noise. They respond to trust, distinct commercial positioning, and sharp human empathy: the recipe that experienced creatives understand.
You can’t prompt your way to a distinct brand identity or automate genuine customer insight.
If we want to fix this broken landscape, we need a fundamental reset in how we treat people and our craft.
Big agencies have to stop treating independent freelancers as last-minute capacity valves to be squeezed on price. The freelance community is the strategic backbone of modern creative execution. Clear briefs, realistic deadlines, and fair day rates aren’t charity; they’re the bare minimum required to get exceptional work out the door for clients.
Recruiters and talent teams have to bring human courtesy back into the process. If a candidate invests hours preparing for an interview or working on a task, they deserve a human response. Ditching the automated ghosting is a must.
Most importantly, marketing leaders need to take a step back from the synthetic content assembly line. Use modern software tools for data synthesis, background research, or market mapping by all means. But when it comes to brand strategy, core narrative development, and creative ideation, keep human craft at the centre of creative output.
While the current market feels brutal, it presents a massive opportunity. The brands and agencies that reject this automated mediocrity, respect their creative talent, and double down on original, human-led strategy will be the ones that win. It’s time to stop race-to-the-bottom thinking and start valuing the craft again.