The short answer
Agency quotes vary because they are not quoting the same thing: different numbers of days, at different levels of seniority, from businesses with different cost bases. A UK firm can settle most of the spread with one division. Divide each quote by the days it names to get an implied day rate, then test that rate against the salary the government publishes for the occupation doing the work.
Key takeaways
- A quote that does not name days is not a price. Two numbers built on unstated volumes cannot be compared at all.
- Divide the fee by the days it names. On one real shape of brief, an eight times spread on total became a 3.2 times spread on day rate.
- The floor under the labour is published. Take the going rate for the occupation, add employer National Insurance and the minimum pension, then divide by billable days.
- That arithmetic puts an advertising and marketing associate at roughly £237 a day before the agency has paid for anything else at all.
- Seniority moves the floor by a factor of 2.6, from about £237 a day to about £622 for a director. A proposal that names no one has withheld the input that moves the price most.
The usual explanation for a wide spread of quotes is that the agencies have each understood the brief differently. It is a comfortable answer and it is mostly wrong.
A UK accountancy practice sends the same two page brief to four agencies and gets back £2,400, £6,900, £11,000 and £19,200 for six months of search work. The advice published on that spread says the cheap one has cut corners and the dear one has priced in discovery. Both may be true. Neither is checkable, and a partner group cannot sign a proposal on an inference.
What is checkable is how many days each quote buys, and what a day of that person costs before the agency has paid for an office, a manager, a software licence or a profit. The second figure is published, by occupation, and it is readable in a browser. Once both are on the table the spread stops being a mystery and becomes a set of numbers that either reconcile or do not.
Turn every quote into a day rate before you compare them
A quote becomes a price the moment it is divided by the days it buys, and stays an opinion until then. It is the reason a retainer has to name units rather than service categories: a category cannot be divided and a unit can. Below are the cheapest and dearest of the four proposals, each walked down to the one figure they have in common.
The cheapest proposal
- Quoted for six months
- £2,400
- Days the proposal names
- 12
- Labour floor for those days
- £2,844
Implied day rate£200
Below the floor for the occupation, before this agency has paid for premises or management. Either the days are not twelve, or the person is not the one described.
The dearest proposal
- Quoted for six months
- £19,200
- Days the proposal names
- 30
- Labour floor for those days
- £9,420
Implied day rate£640
Twenty four associate days and six director days. Direct labour is 49 per cent of the fee, which is the ordinary shape of an agency carrying an office and a management layer.
The floor under a UK day rate is published, by occupation
The government publishes a median annual salary for every occupation it will issue a skilled worker visa against, and that table opens in a browser with no account. Table 1 of Immigration Rules Appendix Skilled Occupations gives a going rate per occupation code, stated per year on a 37.5 hour week. It is a threshold rather than a market rate, so it is not what any individual earns. As a floor that is what is wanted: the question is not what the person is worth, but what the arithmetic in front of you cannot be.
Four adjustments turn a salary into a day rate. Employer Class 1 National Insurance runs at 15 per cent on earnings above a £5,000 secondary threshold for 2026 to 2027. The minimum employer pension contribution is 3 per cent of qualifying earnings, and that band stays at £6,240 to £50,270 for the same year. Then divide by 232 working days, which is roughly 260 weekdays less the 5.6 weeks of statutory holiday, and apply a utilisation rate. Seventy per cent is generous to the agency.
Advertising and marketing associateOccupation code 3554
£33,400
£237
Web design professionalOccupation code 2141
£43,800
£312
Software development professionalOccupation code 2134
£54,700
£391
Marketing or advertising directorOccupation code 1132
£87,300
£622
Before the partner group votes on a proposal
Send us the quotes and we will tell you which ones reconcile.
Free to your firm. The agency pays us, and only if the relationship works, so telling you that a proposal understates its days costs us money.
Get a recommendationWhat a quote below the floor is actually telling you
A price under the labour floor is not a bargain. It is a different arrangement that has not been described. There are five ordinary explanations, and each of them changes what the practice is buying.
- The days are fewer than the proposal implies, because the fee was set by what the agency guessed the practice would pay rather than by the work
- The person doing the work is more junior than the title on the document
- Delivery is subcontracted, often outside the country, where the published floor does not apply
- Part of the work is templated or automated, which may be entirely reasonable, but is not the bespoke month the proposal describes
- The fee is deliberately low to win a longer term, and the real price arrives at renewal
None of these disqualifies an agency. Each is a fair answer to a direct question, and the answer is what makes comparison possible. It is the same reason a monthly figure quoted without a scope tells an accountancy practice nothing, and the same reason a cost per lead is not a cost per client until the conversion rate underneath it is stated.
The price claims on the agency's own website are regulated
Business to business advertising that misleads is prohibited in the UK, and a breach is a criminal offence rather than a matter of taste. Regulation 3 of the Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations 2008 makes advertising misleading where it deceives, or is likely to deceive, the traders it reaches and is by reason of that likely to affect their economic behaviour. Regulation 6 makes it an offence, and the duty to enforce sits with local weights and measures authorities, which is trading standards.
A published starting price or a comparison against a named competitor has to be capable of substantiation, so asking for it in writing is a reasonable request rather than an aggressive one. It is also a request a partner group can make in good conscience, because the identical regulation binds the practice when it advertises its own fees.
When you should not be collecting quotes at all
Two situations make the whole exercise unanswerable, and neither of them is the agencies' fault.
- Nobody has written down what the work is for and when it will be judged. Four agencies then price four different jobs, so the spread is your brief rather than their behaviour, and no amount of dividing reconciles documents that describe different things
- Nobody inside the firm will own the relationship. A day rate is only meaningful against days somebody checks, and an unattended retainer converts into whatever the supplier finds easiest to deliver by about month four
We are paid by the agency, so a page that persuades a partner group to postpone the whole exercise costs us money. What we assess before recommending anybody, including the cases where we decline to introduce anyone, is set out for accountancy practices, recruitment agencies, tax advisory and financial advice firms.
Frequently asked questions
What partner groups ask us about quote variance.
Why do agency quotes vary so much for the same job?
Because the quotes are not for the same job. Each one buys a different number of days, and those days are worked by people at different levels of seniority. Until a proposal states how many days it buys and who works them, the total on its front page is not a price.
How do I compare two agency quotes that are eight times apart?
Divide each quote by the number of days it names, which gives an implied day rate. That is the only figure the two proposals share. A £2,400 quote naming 12 days and a £19,200 quote naming 30 days are £200 and £640 a day, so most of the apparent gap was volume rather than price.
Is there a published floor under what a day of agency work can cost?
There is a floor under the labour. Table 1 of Immigration Rules Appendix Skilled Occupations publishes a median annual salary for each occupation, so an advertising and marketing associate on £33,400 costs about £38,475 a year once employer National Insurance and the minimum pension contribution are added. Over 232 working days at 70 per cent utilisation that is roughly £237 a day in the UK.
Does a cheap agency quote mean the work will be poor?
Not necessarily, but it means something in the proposal is not as described. A price below the labour floor implies fewer days than stated, a more junior person than the title suggests, subcontracted delivery, or a fee deliberately set low to win a longer term. Any of those can be acceptable once named. None of them is acceptable while hidden.
Can an agency be held to the price claims on its website?
Yes. The Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations 2008 prohibit business to business advertising that deceives the traders it reaches and is likely to affect their economic behaviour, and regulation 6 makes a breach a criminal offence. A published claim such as a headline starting price has to be capable of substantiation, so ask for it in writing.
Sources and useful reading
- Immigration Rules Appendix Skilled Occupations, Table 1, for the going rate by occupation code, per year on a 37.5 hour week.
- Rates and thresholds for employers, 2026 to 2027, for the 15 per cent secondary Class 1 rate above a £5,000 secondary threshold.
- The Pensions Regulator, automatic enrolment earnings thresholds, for the qualifying earnings band held at £6,240 to £50,270 for 2026 to 2027.
- Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations 2008, regulation 3, for the prohibition on misleading business to business advertising, with the offence at regulation 6.
This article is commercial decision support, not legal advice. The quotes are illustrative and carry no market data. A going rate is a published salary threshold, so the day figures derived from it are a floor under the labour rather than an estimate of what an agency charges.