Enquirer Consulting Group

Reachable Buyer Map

Prepared for Maisie Jenyon · Boldspace · August 2026
An agency's growth usually runs on the network: referrals, pitch invitations, people who already know the work. That reaches the part of the market that already overlaps you, and it is silent about the rest. This map is the rest. The UK segments that buy brand, communications and creative work, who signs inside each one, and roughly how many companies sit there. It describes the market rather than your business, and there is nothing to buy at the end of it.
Technology and software
The largest pool of first-time buyers on this page. Companies hit a funding stage or a category fight and discover they have no brand system and no press function at the same moment. Decisions move fast, and the brief that starts as one campaign usually becomes a standing program.
Who signs: founder or chief executive, VP of marketing, head of brand, head of communications.
2,500 to 3,500
UK technology and software companies carrying 50 or more people
Financial services, insurance and fintech
Buys corporate communications as a standing requirement rather than as a campaign, because regulation, funding events and reputation set the calendar instead of the marketing plan. Slow to appoint, and unusually loyal once appointed.
Who signs: chief marketing officer, head of corporate affairs, head of communications, chief executive at the founder-led end.
1,200 to 1,800
UK financial and insurance companies at 50 or more people
Consumer brands, food and drink
Where creative and consumer PR are judged on shelf movement and search rather than on coverage volume. The buyer sits closer to the product than in any other segment, which shortens the distance between the idea and the yes.
Who signs: marketing director, brand director, head of ecommerce, and at challenger brands the founder.
1,500 to 2,200
UK consumer goods, food and drink companies at 50 or more people
Healthcare and life sciences
The slowest segment to sign and the least contested, because claim rules keep generalist agencies out of it. Corporate reputation work here sits close to compliance work, which is exactly why it recurs rather than ending with the campaign.
Who signs: head of communications, head of medical affairs, chief executive, head of market access.
900 to 1,400
UK healthcare, pharmaceutical and life science companies at 50 or more people
Certified B corporations
Not a sector, a cohort, and the unusual thing about it is that it is published by name in full. The companies in it sit inside every segment above, purpose is already a board-level line rather than something an agency has to sell in, and recertification puts a date in the diary when the story has to be told again.
Who signs: founder or chief executive, marketing director, head of impact or sustainability, head of communications.
2,600 to 2,900
UK certified companies, published as a named public list
Private capital and portfolio owners
Small by count and unusually valuable, because one relationship can reach a dozen operating companies with separate communications budgets and a shared exit clock. Worth being straight about a limit: ownership is not published as a single list anywhere, so portfolio companies cannot be filtered out of the wider market from public data. They are identified one at a time.
Who signs: operating partner, head of portfolio value creation, communications lead at the fund.
No single public list
a few hundred UK houses; the value is the portfolio sitting behind each one

Where the openings are

1
Referral selects for overlap, not for fit. The segments above come to roughly nine to twelve thousand UK companies large enough to fund brand and communications work properly, before allowing for the certified cohort that overlaps the rest. The network reaches whichever slice of that already touches someone at the agency. The rest is not unqualified, it is simply unaware, and it is the larger number by a wide margin.
2
The buyer is a seat, and the seat turns over. A new marketing director or head of communications reopens the agency roster inside the first two quarters, almost every time. Those appointments are visible from outside if someone is watching several thousand companies on a schedule. A network hears about them once the decision has been made.
3
The certified cohort is a rare audience you can address in full. Some 2,600 to 2,900 UK companies, published by name, already sorted for the conversation an agency like yours wants to have. Working a named list end to end is mechanical rather than creative, which is precisely why it stays open while everyone competes for the same pitch invitations.
4
Four service lines do not share one buyer. Branding sits with the founder or the brand lead. Corporate communications sits with the chief executive or head of corporate affairs. Consumer PR sits with marketing. Creative sits with whoever owns the campaign. A single channel keeps returning to the same door, and in most agencies the other three buyers rarely hear from anyone at all.
Built from public market data on registered UK companies, counts banded deliberately. Registers count registered companies rather than trading sites, and workforce figures are self-reported, so these bands describe the layer carrying real payroll rather than the whole market. Ownership structure is not published anywhere public and is described rather than counted.
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