Ahead of the UEFA women’s Euros final between England and Spain, PRWeek speaks to Lisa Parfitt, former managing director of Engine Sport, who is now co-founder of The Space Between, a creative marketing agency specialising in sport and entertainment. Parfitt is also a director at Women in Football, an organisation that is driving gender equality in the game.

Beyond the Noise looks at some of the biggest issues affecting communications and PR. Download the podcast via Apple, Spotify, or listen in the browser above or on your favourite platform.

Speaking to PRWeek UK deputy editor Siobhan Holt, Parfitt chats about the brand campaigns that have stood out to her during this year’s tournament. She also offers her analysis of the trends, such as purpose-led work. 

Separately, she discusses online hate in sport and how organisations such as Women in Football and The FA are challenging discrimination, as well as sharing her views on the future of anti-racism gestures like taking a knee before matches.

In the episode, Parfitt explains how an evolving media strategy can build consistent momentum between tournaments, as well as which of the Lionesses could be ‘influencers to watch’, and what the lessons are for comms professionals looking ahead to tournaments such the men’s FIFA World Cup 2026. 

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Beyond the Noise looks at some of the biggest issues affecting communications and PR. Download the podcast via Apple, Spotify, or listen on your favourite platform.

Our guest is Jack Storry, head of corporate at Boldspace and author of the first Reputation Hits and Misses of the Week column – PRWeek’s new series examining who has handled their reputation adeptly or poorly in the past seven days.

Speaking to PRWeek UK editor John Harrington and deputy news editor Evie Barrett, Storry looks at how the Co-op has handled the aftermath of the recent damaging cyber-attack. In particular, he commends the comms of Co-op chief executive Shirine Khoury-Haq, who appeared on the BBC Breakfast sofa last week.

Separately, the trio discuss how the Coca-Cola Company deftly swerved a potential clash with President Trump.

Less positively, they also look at the comms handling of last week’s widely reported story about a girl being excluded from her school’s ‘Culture Day’ for wearing a Union Jack dress and wanting to speak about her pride at being British.

Meanwhile, we ask whether data company Astronomer got its comms right after its CEO and chief people officer were caught together on ‘kiss cam’ at a Coldplay concert – a major talking point in recent days.

We also ask: are brands ever right to ‘newsjack’ such incidents?

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PRWeek’s first Transparency Report has got a lot of people talking this week. The report gives a star rating to every agency in the PRWeek UK Top 150 based on the level of disclosure about parental leave policies, whether they are living wage employers, and also gender and ethnicity pay gaps.

Joining the podcast are Katie Eborall, head of north for Grayling, and a member of the Women in PR committee; and Sheeraz Gulsher, co-founder of People Like Us, the networking and campaign group for minority ethnic marcomms and media professionals that works with PRWeek on the Pay Gap Report.

Beyond the Noise looks at some of the biggest issues affecting communications and PR. Download the podcast via Apple, Spotify, or listen in the browser above or on your favourite platform.

Speaking to PRWeek UK editor John Harrington, the guests discuss whether they are surprised at the results of the Transparency Report, which saw 25 agencies receive the top four-star rating and 30 receive zero stars.

They talk about why it’s important to be transparent as a comms business, with a focus on business success - research by PRWeek found the 25 four-star agencies strongly outperformed the Top 150 as a whole in the 2024 calendar year.

The duo also speak about the reputational issues for agencies that choose not to disclose the information.

Separately, our guests dig into some of the findings around parental leave policies and Living Wage payments and ask: is the sector doing enough?

This autumn will see the sixth iteration of the Pay Gaps Report from PRWeek and People Like Us. Click here for more information and to take part.

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What’s it like making the move from agency-side to an in-house role? That’s the topic of PRWeek’s latest Beyond the Noise podcast episode.

This week, we hear from two leading in-house communications professionals about their experiences moving from agency to in-house roles.

Our guests are Alice Jenkins-Bruce, director of communications and content at Sky, and Lindsay Landi, head of PR and communications at Samsung UK.

Beyond the Noise looks at some of the biggest issues affecting communications and PR. Download the podcast via Apple, Spotify, or listen in the browser above or on your favourite platform.

Speaking to PRWeek’s reporter, Elizabeth Wiredu, and UK editor John Harrington, Jenkins-Bruce and Landi explain why they switched to in-house roles, what surprised them most about the transition, and how they now approach client relationships and pitches.

They also discuss whether they approach measurement and ROI differently, the skills and perspectives they have gained and developed by working in-house, and what advice they would offer to someone considering the transition.

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Transparency - around salaries and parental leave policies at PR agencies - is the theme of PRWeek’s latest podcast.

PRWeek UK editor John Harrington and deputy editor Siobhan Holt are joined by Elena Lewis, data editor at PRWeek and sister title Campaign, to look at the big trends based on recent research.

Beyond the Noise looks at some of the biggest issues affecting comms and PR. Download the podcast via Apple, Spotify, or listen on your favourite platform.

The team discusses a new study by PRWeek that found only around one in four of the UK’s biggest PR agencies post salaries on their job ads.

They look at separate, newly-released research by PRWeek, as part of the UK Top 150 Consultancies project, into the proportion of agencies that have disclosed whether they pay the Living Wage or the London Living Wage.

The Top 150 questionnaire also asked agencies to declare their parental leave policies - the trio discuss how many did, and examine some of the big trends in the policies.

On the topic of transparency, UK PR agencies can submit their data for the upcoming Pay Gaps Report from PRWeek and People Like Us - click here for more information.

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What’s it like looking for jobs in PR at the moment? That’s the topic of PRWeek’s latest Beyond the Noise podcast episode. This week we hear from two people with recent experience of the PR job market from the point of view of candidates.

Our guests are Deekshima Khanna, who is about to complete an MA in Public Relations at the University of Salford, and is looking for her first job in UK PR having worked in comms in India; and Patricia Mihail, who has worked both agency-side and in-house in comms for 15 years and is seeking her next move.

Beyond the Noise looks at some of the biggest issues affecting comms and PR. Download the podcast via Apple, Spotify, or listen on your favourite platform.

Speaking to PRWeek UK editor John Harrington, our guests discuss their recent experiences of dealing with recruiters and comms employers directly.

They talk about LinkedIn as a recruitment tool; the weight given to comms degrees; and how the market can seem ‘closed off’, especially to people who didn’t grow up in the UK.

The duo discuss their experience of being ‘ghosted’, and other poor practices, alongside examples of when the process has worked well for both sides.

Our guests also give their take on new research by PRWeek, showing that only around one in four UK PR firms disclose salaries on job ads. They discuss the impact that AI might be having on PR recruitment and emphasise the importance of networking and "resilience" when job hunting.

An earlier Beyond the Noise podcast looked at recruitment from the point of view of PR employers.

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With campaigns by PR agencies picking up fewer awards at the International Festival of Creativity than last year, PRWeek journalists Danny Rogers, John Harrington and Siobhan Holt look at why that might be.

Beyond the Noise looks at some of the biggest issues affecting comms and PR. Download the podcast via Apple, Spotify, or listen on your favourite platform.

The PRWeek team pick out some of their favourite Lions-winning campaigns and discuss what made them a hit, and what it says about the main ingredients for a successful earned media campaign.

They look at why purpose campaigns continue to show up among Cannes Lions winners, despite the much-discussed retreat from DEI and ESG in the Trump era.

The trio also give a sense of how Cannes Lions was different overall, or not, in 2025.

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With Cannes Festival of Creativity , PRWeek speaks with a creative director about the value of industry awards, and how the rivalry between PR and advertising has evolved.

This week on Beyond the Noise, we hear from Ottilie Ross, creative director at PR agency Mischief.

Ross – who also has experience at The Romans, Halpern and Milk & Honey – shares her view on whether industry accolades actually matter, and which recent work she thinks is award-worthy.

Beyond the Noise looks at some of the biggest issues affecting comms and PR. Download the podcast via Apple, Spotify, or listen on your favourite platform.

Speaking to PRWeek UK editor John Harrington and journalist Evie Barrett, Ross shares her view on how advertising is evolving to compete with PR, and how the UK’s creativity compares to that of other markets.

She also reveals Mischief’s approach to boosting creativity when it comes to clients issuing mundane briefs, and discusses which PR tropes she’d like to see the back of.

Cannes Lions takes place from 16 to 20 June. Stay tuned to PRWeek for all the news and insights from the festival.

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The recent acceleration in CEO and MD departures and arrivals at major UK PR agencies is examined in PRWeek’s latest Beyond the Noise podcast.

The past few weeks have seen changes at the top of the UK or EMEA operations of big agencies including Edelman, MSL, FTI, Weber Shandwick, FleishmanHillard and Hotwire.

Joining PRWeek’s Siobhan Holt and John Harrington to discuss the trend is Amy Hayer, a partner at Hanson Search, a headhunting consultancy that specialises in recruiting C-suite comms leaders.

Beyond the Noise looks at some of the biggest issues affecting comms and PR. Download the podcast via Apple, Spotify, or listen on your favourite platform.

The trio talk about why the current trading climate may be fuelling the rate of change among senior leadership teams, and what skills and career experience agencies and holding companies want for their UK bosses.

They also look at the extent to which bosses themselves may want to leave to try something different.

The issue of agency leaders being recruited from in-house roles, and the counter-trend of agency chiefs moving client-side, is discussed. So too is the question of whether promotions from within have become less common and why there may be a generational shift.

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This week on Beyond the Noise, we hear from Pitch Marketing Group founder and chief executive Henry Chappell, who discusses why FIFA World Cup 26 looks set to eclipse all previous global sporting events, according to a new report from the sports marketing agency.

Beyond the Noise looks at some of the biggest issues affecting comms and PR. Download the podcast via Apple, Spotify, or on your favourite platform.

With exactly one year to go until FIFA World Cup 26 kicks off, the Pitch report predicts the tournament will have a global reach of more than five billion people, equivalent to about 63 per cent of the world’s population. A staggering 711 billion combined engagements across all media platforms are also anticipated.

Speaking to PRWeek editor-in-chief Danny Rogers, Chappell – who has topped the PRWeek UK Power Book Sports (Agency) list for the past two years – said the scale of the tournament was unprecedented, with 104 matches across 16 cities converging sport with culture, music and technology.

Sandy Doran, strategy director at Pitch, stated: “Geopolitics and legacy aside, the real winners will be the brands who use the ‘human intelligence’ of content creators the best, or at least bother to check that their AI content isn’t going rogue. And also the brands that represent football fans, first and foremost, and don’t get suckered into the ‘Super Bowl-isation’ of the tournament.”

The podcast also hears why brands will have to be decisive about the role of artificial intelligence in their campaigns, and how the report warns that authentic content from ex-professional footballers could prove more popular than anything produced by traditional broadcasters.

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