A leadership benchmarking report from The Industry Club & Spark AI
Skills • Training • Hiring • Capability
63% of agency leaders feel confident they're ready for AI.
But 37% admit they're still using it sporadically, with no formal strategy. That confidence–capability gap is already changing how UK creative agencies train, hire and build teams for 2026 and beyond.
This report reveals how agency leaders are tackling that gap — from training investment to hiring priorities to capability building. It’s the first partnership of its kind between
The Industry Club (skills & hiring) and
Spark AI (AI specialist consultancy), giving a complete picture of how AI is transforming agency talent.
KEY FINDINGS
The skills gap isn’t just technical:
Top gaps: prompting (18%) and selling AI solutions (17%).
Training and transformation:
68% plan to spend up to £15k on AI training; 46% have made or plan to make AI-specific hires.
Hiring for curiosity, not mastery:
65% prioritise adaptability and problem-solving; only 6% hire for specific AI skills.
Two clear archetypes emerging:
37% are still experimenting; 19% are leading with structured adoption.
INSIDE THE REPORT
✓ Why the confidence–capability gap exists — and how to close it
✓ Eight strategic priorities for moving from experimentation to optimisation
✓ The Spark AI Maturity Model™ to benchmark where your agency sits
✓ How leaders are building capability through training, partnerships and hiring
✓ Panel insights from senior creative-agency leaders
✓ What’s changing in 2026 — from efficiency to growth
Actionable insight • Training + hiring strategies
FEATURING INSIGHTS FROM
Robin Garton (Sky Creative) | Natalie Winford (Jellyfish) |
Laura Jackson (Not Actual Size) | Adrienn Major (POD LDN) | Stu Tallis (Taxi Studio)
“Having a plan — even a light one — suddenly made it feel manageable. People knew what was expected and what was okay to try.”
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
Talent Specialists | AI Specialists
Together: the complete view of how AI is transforming creative-agency talent.
DOWNLOAD THE FULL REPORT
Get the full analysis, benchmarks and strategic recommendations for the future of agency talent.
Free 40-page PDF • Instant access • No credit card required
For creative and strategy agency, Not Actual Size, success in the AI era is built on both developing their existing team and recruiting people with the right mindset.
Business Director Laura Jackson prioritises attitude over technical proficiency when hiring. In talking to candidates, she explains, “It’s not about hiring for specific technical skills. We're looking for values around curiosity and openness to technology and new ideas. The kind of people who’ll figure it out as they go.”
This emphasis reflects a broader philosophy at Not Actual Size, recognising that adaptable thinking and creative judgement will remain valuable long after tool-specific AI skills become outdated.
For Adrienn Major's post-production agency POD LDN, AI adoption began as a controlled experiment. Today it has now become central to POD’s identity and client offering. They've transformed both their internal team structure and recruitment methods to build AI capabilities that bridge creative and technical expertise.
“We started two years ago with a very small team,” explains Adrienn. “We had a couple of producers and a couple of artists starting to play with AI back then, supported by our IT team.”
What began as experimentation has evolved into a structured approach to AI integration, revealing important insights about the skills needed in today's content production landscape.
At Sky Creative Agency, AI isn't just another tool – it's fundamental to business strategy. “Our ambitions in production, our ambitions in personalisation – AI is part of everything we're doing,” explains Executive Creative Director, Robin Garton.
Rather than seeing AI as a standalone initiative, Sky Creative views it as an enabler woven into their core objectives. “It’s a tool across so many different pieces,” Robin explains. “It's not an end in itself; it's a means to an end.
For us, AI underpins everything from personalisation and campaign development to how we produce and validate creative ideas.
When Taxi Studio ran AI training in early 2025, Creative Director Stu Tallis saw first-hand how quickly the ground was shifting. “Even six months later, the training was out of date,” he said. “That’s the world we live in now.”
Despite the technological whirlwind, Stu remains grounded in a core principle. Curiosity, critical thought and craft will remain the foundations of creativity.
At Jellyfish, AI adoption isn't a future aspiration – it's fully embedded in daily operations.
“There's no role in the whole of Jellyfish that can't talk about AI processes now,” says Natalie Winford, who oversees a creative team of approximately 400 practitioners globally.
What began as an integration of eleven companies in 2020 has evolved into a showcase for AI-enabled creativity, with proprietary technology at its core.
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