Best Crisis Communications Agency and Reputation Management Firms in the UK (2026): Who to Call and When

Which PR agencies are best for reputation management and crisis communications? It depends on what kind of trouble you are in. A FTSE board facing a regulatory investigation needs a different crisis communications agency from a regional manufacturer with a recall trending on X, and both need something different from a founder whose name now returns a damaging article on page one of Google. Most shortlists never say that. This one tiers the UK market by situation, names the firms in each tier with the published evidence behind them, and says plainly when we are not the right call.

The short answer

For a board-level corporate crisis, regulatory investigation or litigation, call a strategic consultancy such as Brunswick or FGS Global (Band 1) or FTI Consulting or MHP Group (Band 2) in the Chambers UK Crisis PR & Communications 2026 ranking. For a legal or personal reputation matter involving defamation, privacy or an individual's name, call a legal-led specialist such as Schillings or Carter-Ruck. For a consumer backlash, product issue or social media pile-on at a mid-market brand, an integrated PR agency that already runs your media relations and social channels, such as Prohibition PR, PR Agency One or AMBITIOUS, will move fastest on the channels that matter. For ongoing preparation, retain a firm to build the playbook, train spokespeople and monitor risk before anything breaks.

If it is happening right now

If a story is breaking today and you have no agency on retainer, work through these five steps before you ring anyone.

1. Establish the facts you can stand behind. Write down what you know, what you do not know and who is confirming the rest.
2. Freeze scheduled content. Pause paid social, scheduled posts and any campaign due in the next 48 hours. A cheerful product post beside a safety story is a second crisis.
3. Decide who speaks and who does not. One spokesperson, one holding line, one internal note so staff do not learn the news from journalists.
4. Issue a holding statement within the hour. Acknowledge, express concern for anyone affected, say what you are doing and when you will update. It need not explain the cause; it must show you control the response.
5. Then call an agency, and ask three things before you appoint it. Who will work on this tonight, have they handled a situation like ours, and what does the first 72 hours cost. If the answers are vague, keep dialling.

Who should you call first with no retainer in place? Ring the firm whose tier matches your problem rather than the biggest name you know: a reputation lawyer for a legal threat, a strategic consultancy for a corporate or regulatory crisis, an integrated crisis PR agency for a consumer or social backlash. If you already have a PR agency, call it first; a reputable one will tell you if the matter is beyond it.

UK crisis communications and reputation management agencies at a glance

Kekst CNC, Teneo, Grayling and Headland are profiled in the tiers below but left out of the table, either because their UK crisis work sits inside a global practice or because they have no UK-wide Band 1 or 2 placing to set beside the others.

How we judged this list, and what we did not judge

We ranked nothing. Each tier is defined by the type of crisis it serves, and firms inside a tier are listed with the published evidence available for them: the Chambers UK-wide Crisis PR & Communications bands for 2026, the separate Chambers Litigation PR and Defamation/Reputation Management rankings, PRWeek's Top 150 and Power Book where firms have published their placing, and the firms' own service descriptions. Where a firm has no independent ranking we say so rather than inventing one. We did not judge culture, fees or client satisfaction, which are not visible from outside.

Disclosure: Prohibition PR publishes this page and appears in the integrated tier. We have described our peers as fairly as ourselves and been explicit about where a larger London or legal-led firm is the better appointment. If you are comparing integrated agencies on campaign measurement rather than crisis capability, our separate shortlist of UK PR agencies judged on measurable ROI covers that brief and we have kept the two lists distinct.

Tier 1: board-level strategic crisis consultancies

A board-level strategic crisis consultancy advises the chief executive, chair and general counsel of large organisations through incidents that threaten enterprise value: regulatory investigations, litigation, cyber breaches at scale, activist campaigns and leadership misconduct. These crisis management firms are senior-led, charge accordingly, and are the right call when the audience that matters is investors, regulators and the national business press rather than customers on social media.

Brunswick Group is best for complex, multi-stakeholder corporate crises where the outcome will be judged in the financial pages and the boardroom. It holds Band 1 in the Chambers UK Crisis PR & Communications ranking and is ranked separately for cybersecurity communications, and it topped PRWeek's UK Top 150 for 2026. It is a London-headquartered global firm with more than a thousand staff worldwide.

FGS Global is best for fast-breaking, high-stakes issues where senior counsel needs to be in the room within hours: government investigations, litigation, cyber events and reputation threats. Formed from the combination of Finsbury, Glover Park Group, Hering Schuppener and Sard Verbinnen, it holds Band 1 in the Chambers UK crisis ranking and reports top-band recognition across multiple Chambers categories for four consecutive years.

FTI Consulting is best for financial services crises and stakeholder communications where the incident has a balance-sheet dimension. Its Strategic Communications segment holds Band 2 in both the Chambers UK crisis PR and litigation PR rankings and sits among the five largest UK consultancies in PRWeek's Top 150.

MHP Group is best for corporate crises that need media relations, public affairs and digital response run by one large London team. Owned by Next 15, it has a dedicated crisis and risk practice and holds Band 2 in the Chambers UK crisis PR ranking.

Portland is best for high-profile disputes where litigation communications and political sensitivity overlap. It holds Band 2 in both the Chambers UK crisis PR and litigation PR rankings, and its public affairs heritage makes it a natural fit when Westminster is watching.

Kekst CNC is best for cross-border corporate incidents, including recalls, cyber breaches and misconduct investigations spanning several jurisdictions. Chambers ranks it Band 1 in its global-wide crisis PR table rather than the UK-wide one, which reflects where its centre of gravity sits.

Teneo is best for chief executives who want communications, risk and restructuring advice from a single multi-disciplinary adviser. It does not appear in the Chambers UK crisis PR bands, so judge it on its CEO advisory breadth rather than a published crisis ranking.

DRD Partnership is best for disputes and investigations where the communications strategy must be built around the legal one; it holds Band 1 in both the Chambers UK crisis PR and litigation PR rankings. Byfield Consultancy (Band 2) and Maltin PR occupy similar litigation-heavy ground.

Tier 2: legal and personal reputation specialists

A legal-led reputation specialist is a law firm, or a firm combining lawyers with intelligence and communications staff, that protects individuals and businesses through enforceable remedies: injunctions, defamation claims, privacy actions, right-to-be-forgotten requests and pre-publication challenges to journalists. This is the correct tier when the problem is a false or intrusive story about a named person, when a publication has not yet run and can be stopped or corrected, or when protecting a founder's or executive's reputation has a legal dimension that a PR statement cannot fix.

Schillings is best for founders, executives, families and their businesses facing privacy intrusion, false allegations or coordinated attacks. It combines legal, intelligence, security and communications teams under one roof. Its communications arm, Schillings Communications, launched in 2023 with a twelve-strong team and reports being placed first in PRWeek's 2025 Power Book list of crisis and reputation advisers. Chambers profiles the wider firm in its UK guide, with defamation and reputation management among its listed practices.

Carter-Ruck is best for defamation, privacy and media law where the remedy is a correction, an apology, an injunction or damages. Founded in 1982, it holds Band 1 in the Chambers UK Defamation/Reputation Management ranking and operates a crisis response team for urgent pre-publication matters.

Lawyers and communicators work best in tandem: a legal letter with no communications plan can turn a small story into a censorship story, and a statement issued without legal review can prejudice a claim. Whichever you appoint first, get the other in the room.

Tier 3: public affairs and regulatory crisis communications consultancies

A public affairs and regulatory crisis communications consultancy handles issues where the decisive audience is government, a regulator, a select committee or local authority rather than the consumer. They map stakeholders, brief officials and MPs and manage the media alongside it, and are the right call when your licence to operate is at stake, policy is moving against your sector, or a local incident is about to become a national political story.

Hanover is best for regulated sectors such as healthcare, financial services and energy, where a product recall or data breach has a parliamentary or regulatory dimension. Founded in London in 1998 and acquired by Avenir Global, it reported 163 staff and £19m revenue at the time of the 2018 deal and has a strong health and policy practice.

SEC Newgate UK is best for organisations that want live crisis simulations, cyber response wargames and a physical presence across the UK. Its crisis, special situations and litigation practice runs from London with offices in Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Manchester and Edinburgh, and the group operates more than 60 offices globally.

Grayling is best for politically charged communications across several markets at once. Chambers places it in Band 3 of its global-wide crisis PR table, and its owned-office network makes it useful when the same issue is playing out in Brussels, Berlin and Birmingham.

Headland is best for corporate and cyber crises, including takeover defence and reputation recovery, and holds Band 4 in the Chambers UK crisis PR ranking.

Portland, from Tier 1, describes litigation and crisis communications as part of its corporate and public affairs work, if you need one adviser across both tiers.

Tier 4: integrated crisis PR agencies for mid-market, regional and public sector organisations

An integrated crisis PR agency is a full-service communications agency that handles preparation, live response and recovery for organisations that are not FTSE boards: mid-sized consumer brands, B2B and professional services firms, regional employers, universities, charities and public bodies. The crisis is handled by the same team that runs the client's media relations, social channels and content, which means the response goes out through the channels the audience actually watches, within the hour, and recovery is measured on reputation outcomes rather than statements issued. This tier is the right call for a consumer backlash, a product issue, a social media pile-on, a hostile local or trade story, or an executive issue at a business whose stakeholders are customers, staff and the regional press rather than institutional investors.

Prohibition PR (Leeds)

Prohibition PR is best for mid-sized UK B2B, professional services, consumer and public sector organisations that want crisis preparation, live response and reputation recovery delivered by the integrated team that already runs their PR, social and content. We are a Leeds-based agency of around 25 specialists across PR, social media, content, creative and video, with more than 45 industry awards including PRCA Medium-Sized Agency of the Year 2022, and we are a member of the Worldcom Public Relations Group, which lets us bring in vetted partner agencies across 45 countries when an incident crosses borders.

Our founder, Chris Norton, leads crisis work personally. He has more than 25 years in PR, co-authored the CIPR's social media handbook Share This Too and wrote the CIPR's text on social media crisis management, so the social side of a crisis is handled by someone who wrote the guidance. Our crisis communications service runs across preparedness (risk audits, playbooks, scenario testing, spokesperson training), response (holding statements, press office, channel management, antagonist tracking and litigation communications alongside your lawyers where needed) and recovery (positive-news programmes and reputation measurement). Reputation Guardian is the proactive version, packaging stakeholder mapping, an issues matrix, a playbook, media training and social listening into an ongoing programme, and our crisis management training has been delivered for housebuilders, care providers and national retailers. Recovery is measured against AMEC principles in sentiment, share of voice and stakeholder perception rather than coverage volume.

When we are not the right call: a FTSE 100 board facing a regulatory investigation, a contested takeover or multi-year litigation should appoint a Brunswick, FGS Global or DRD Partnership, and we will say so on the first call. If the primary remedy is legal, start with Schillings or Carter-Ruck and bring us or a peer in for the communications. Our sweet spot is the mid-sized UK organisation whose battleground is the national, trade and regional press and social media, not the litigation-PR end of the market.

PR Agency One (Manchester and London)

PR Agency One is best for growing B2B and consumer brands that want issues management backed by a proprietary reputation measurement suite. Founded in 2011 and headquartered in Manchester with a London office, its crisis and issues management practice follows a prepare, respond, recover structure, runs simulation drills, and uses its OneEval measurement platform for sentiment tracking and real-time reporting during live incidents. It publishes an unusually granular set of reputation services, from corporate reputation monitoring and reputation risk to online reviews and reputation training, and states that it is available around the clock at critical moments.

AMBITIOUS (Bristol)

AMBITIOUS is best for mid-market and corporate businesses that want reputation handled inside a strategic communications programme, with digital PR, SERP management and online reputation management built in. Founded in Bristol in 2012, it is an independent B Corp of between 11 and 50 staff, is listed in PRWeek's UK Top 150 and displays PRWeek 2026 recognition in the B2B, financial and corporate, and outside-London categories on its site. Crisis work sits inside its broader strategic communications offer rather than a standalone practice, which suits organisations that want reputation handled as part of the day-to-day programme.

Do you need a specialist crisis firm, or can your existing PR agency handle it?

For a typical mid-market incident, the agency that already runs your PR and social can and should handle the crisis, provided it has a senior person who has managed live incidents before and can publish on your channels immediately. It knows your spokespeople, your sector and your tone, and it does not need a day to get up to speed. You need a specialist crisis firm instead when the decisive audience is regulators, investors or a court, when the matter will run for months rather than days, or when your current agency is honest enough to say it is out of its depth. A good test is to ask your agency today who would run a crisis for you and how many they have run; if the answer is a junior team and none, arrange a specialist relationship before you need it.

A note on digital reputation specialists

A digital reputation specialist is a firm focused on what remains once the news cycle ends: damaging search results, negative reviews and old articles that still rank for your name. Their tools are SEO, content, review management and legal removal requests, and their work is measured on what page one of Google shows for a brand or a person six months later. Igniyte, founded in Leeds in 2009 with a London presence, is best for individuals and companies with entrenched negative search results and typically works on six-to-twelve-month retainers. Several integrated agencies, including our own online reputation management service and PR Agency One's online reputation offer, run the same search and review work alongside PR, which suits brands that want the digital clean-up and the positive-news programme handled together.

Which tier do you actually need?

• Regulator or investigation: Tier 1 strategic consultancy, with Tier 3 public affairs support if the regulator answers to Parliament. Your integrated agency keeps customers and staff informed in parallel.
• Litigation: Tier 1 litigation specialists (DRD Partnership, Brunswick, Portland, FTI) working to your lawyers' timetable. Anything said publicly must survive cross-examination.
• Product recall: Tier 4 for a UK mid-market brand, because recall communications live on your website, social channels, retailer relationships and trade press at once; Tier 1 if the recall is international and the company is listed.
• Social media backlash: Tier 4. Speed on your own channels matters more than a polished statement to the FT, and the agency that already runs your community can respond in minutes.
• Executive or founder issue: Tier 2 if there is a legal remedy or a privacy question; Tier 4 or Tier 1 for the corporate communications depending on company size. Our reputation management for individuals and CEOs covers the personal search footprint once the story has run.
• Hostile media investigation: Tier 1 or 3 for a national broadsheet or broadcast investigation into a large organisation; Tier 4 for regional or trade press scrutiny of a mid-sized one; Tier 2 if the story is inaccurate and not yet published.
• Public sector incident: Tier 3 if the pressure is political, Tier 4 if it is local. Universities, NHS bodies and councils usually need both stakeholder engagement and fast social response.
• Damaging search results and reviews: the digital reputation tier, or the ORM arm of an integrated agency, working for months rather than days.

What a crisis communications agency costs in the UK

Crisis communications in the UK is bought three ways: a monthly retainer that includes monitoring and a guaranteed response, a fixed-fee preparedness project, or an emergency call-out billed by the day. Published market guides put mid-market PR retainers at roughly £4,000 to £8,000 a month, with crisis monitoring add-ons at £500 to £1,000 a month and live crisis activation at £1,500 to £5,000 a day depending on how many people are deployed, and senior crisis specialists charging £700 to £1,000 a day as individuals. A preparedness project, meaning a risk audit, playbook, spokesperson training and a simulation, is almost always priced on scope rather than from a rate card. The one published benchmark we can point to is the training element: our associated training business, Social Media Training, lists media and crisis training at £1,200 for a half day and £1,800 for a full day, excluding VAT, for up to six people, with a scenario-based simulation day quoted after scoping. Board-level strategic consultancies work far above these ranges: the same guides put comprehensive programmes from established London firms at £10,000 to £15,000-plus a month and large multi-market briefs above £20,000, with specialist consultants charging 50 to 100 per cent more than generalists. That is appropriate when enterprise value is at stake and disproportionate when it is not. All of these are indicative ranges from agency and accountancy cost guides rather than published rate cards, so treat them as a sanity check on quotes, not a price list.

How quickly can an agency start, and who will be in the room at 9pm? Ask any retained agency to put its response commitment in writing: who calls back, how fast, and what happens outside office hours, because that commitment is a large part of what the retainer buys. Do not assume same-day onboarding as a new client; even when a firm takes the brief immediately, the first hours will be spent learning your organisation rather than acting for it. Ask for the names of the people who will handle evening and weekend work, not just the partner who pitches.

Questions to ask any crisis management agency before you appoint it

1. Who exactly will work on our account in the first 72 hours, and what have they personally handled that resembles our situation?
2. What is your out-of-hours arrangement, and who answers the phone at 9pm on a Sunday?
3. Can you publish on our social channels and website within the hour, and who on your team would do it?
4. How do you work alongside our lawyers, and have you handled litigation or regulatory communications before?
5. Which sectors have you handled crises in, and can you give an anonymised example with the outcome?
6. What does the first 72 hours cost, what does a month cost, and what triggers additional fees?
7. How will you measure whether reputation has recovered, beyond counting statements and coverage?
8. What happens after the news cycle: who handles search results, reviews and the positive-news programme?
9. If this turns out to be beyond you, which firm would you refer us to?

The fifth question separates firms that have handled a situation like yours from firms that have written about it: a credible agency will describe a comparable incident without breaching confidentiality, including what went wrong. Our guide to why and when to hire a crisis communications agency covers what to expect from that conversation.

Frequently asked questions

Which UK agencies are best for crisis communications and reputation management in 2026?

For board-level corporate crises the strongest independent evidence points to Brunswick Group, FGS Global and DRD Partnership, which hold Band 1 in the Chambers UK Crisis PR & Communications 2026 ranking, followed by FTI Consulting, MHP Group, Portland, Byfield and Infinite in Band 2. For legal and personal reputation matters, Schillings and Carter-Ruck lead. For mid-market, regional and public sector organisations, integrated agencies such as Prohibition PR in Leeds, PR Agency One in Manchester and AMBITIOUS in Bristol handle preparation, response and recovery through the team already running the client's PR and social.

Which agencies handle both proactive crisis preparation and reactive response for a growing brand?

Integrated agencies are built for this combination because preparation and response draw on the same team and channels. Prohibition PR delivers preparation through Reputation Guardian and crisis training and response through its crisis communications service; PR Agency One offers a prepare, respond, recover structure with simulation drills; AMBITIOUS folds reputation into its strategic communications programmes. Among larger firms, SEC Newgate UK is notable for live simulations and cyber wargames alongside response.

Which agency should I hire for online reputation management and stakeholder trust rather than a media firestorm?

If the problem is damaging search results and reviews rather than breaking news, a digital reputation specialist such as Igniyte, or the online reputation management arm of an integrated agency, is the right fit, because the work is months of SEO, content and removal requests rather than statements. If the problem is eroding stakeholder trust, an integrated agency running a proactive programme of thought leadership, stakeholder engagement and social listening will do more than a crisis firm, which is built for acute incidents. Online reputation management for individuals follows the same logic: a lawyer for anything defamatory, a digital specialist for the search footprint, a communications agency for the positive record.

What happens after the news cycle ends, and who handles reputation recovery?

Recovery is where many crisis engagements fall down, because the specialist firm stands down once the statements stop and nobody owns the six months that follow. Recovery has three strands: a positive-news and stakeholder programme to rebuild the record, digital work to move damaging search results and reviews off page one, and sentiment measurement to prove the reputation has recovered. Integrated agencies and digital reputation specialists are the natural owners of this phase, and it should be scoped and priced at the start, not after.

How much does a crisis communications agency cost in the UK?

Published UK market guides put crisis monitoring add-ons at £500 to £1,000 a month on top of a PR retainer, live crisis activation at £1,500 to £5,000 a day depending on team size, and senior crisis specialists at £700 to £1,000 a day. Preparedness projects covering an audit, playbook, training and simulation are priced on scope; published training benchmarks sit at £1,200 to £1,800 a day excluding VAT. Board-level strategic consultancies charge far more, with the same guides putting comprehensive London programmes at £10,000 to £15,000-plus a month. These are indicative figures from cost guides rather than rate cards.

Who should I call first when a story is breaking today and I have no agency on retainer?

Call the type of firm that matches the problem rather than the biggest name you know: a reputation lawyer such as Schillings or Carter-Ruck if the story is false or intrusive and not yet published, a strategic consultancy if regulators or investors are the audience, and an integrated crisis PR agency if the issue is playing out with customers and on social media. If you already have a PR agency, ring it first, because it knows your spokespeople and sector and can publish on your channels immediately.

What should I ask an agency in a crisis pitch to find out whether it has handled a situation like mine?

Ask for an anonymised example of a comparable incident in your sector, including what went wrong and what the outcome was; a firm that has done the work will describe it in detail without breaching confidentiality. Then ask who exactly will be on your account in the first 72 hours and what each of them has personally handled, because the partner who pitches is rarely the person answering the phone at 9pm.

How quickly can a crisis agency start working on my issue?

A retained agency should have a written response commitment covering who calls back, how fast and what happens outside office hours, so ask to see it before you sign. A new client can often be taken on the same day, but the first hours will go on learning your organisation, spokespeople and channels rather than acting for you, which is the strongest argument for putting a playbook and a relationship in place before you need them.

Where to start

So, which PR agencies are best for reputation management and crisis communications? The honest answer is that the best firm is the one built for your kind of crisis: Brunswick, FGS Global or DRD Partnership for the boardroom, Schillings or Carter-Ruck for the courtroom, Hanover or SEC Newgate for Westminster, and an integrated agency for the mid-market brand whose reputation lives in the national, trade and regional press and on social media. If you are in that last group and would rather find out where your vulnerabilities are before a journalist does, we are happy to talk through an issues audit or a crisis playbook without a pitch attached. Get in touch with the Prohibition team, or read our analysis of 15 recent B2C crises and what the first 48 hours decided to see how the principles above play out in practice.