IPA Bellwether: UK Marketing Budgets Get the Strongest Upward Revision in Nine Quarters

The IPA's Bellwether report for the third quarter of 2026 shows total UK marketing budgets revised upward by the strongest margin in nine quarters, the IPA says, since the second quarter of 2024. Campaign carried the story on 15 October under the headline that budgets had risen to their highest level since 2024.

The IPA says every category in the survey was revised upward, with PR and events leading and main media reaching a nine-quarter high. Its director general, Paul Bainsfair, said that with growth back at the top of the Government's agenda it was encouraging to see businesses increasing marketing investment at the strongest rate in more than two years.

The page we could read gave no survey dates or net-balance figures, so none are quoted here.

What it means on the ground

Rising main-media budgets tend to mean more commissioned production, but the report does not split spend by video, so that is an inference, not a finding. Our guide to budgeting a studio shoot in London is the arithmetic from the other side of the table.