How 2026 M&A is Shaping Up in the UK & Ireland

The UK remains the benchmark market in Europe for marketing technology and services. It’s where the traditional holdcos, PE-backed platforms and many of the new wave independent groups continue to lead, grow and invest.

Ireland adds a valuable second leg to that story. Dublin is the key EMEA base for global tech (and increasingly regional marketing spend) as well as being a year-round event destination (tech summits, conferences, major sporting occasions). Both of these shifts have created ancillary opportunity for the best agencies and products. 

Our view is that 2026 will be a very active year for M&A across both the UK and Ireland.

1. The UK is tuning up its own ‘marketing OS’

Four shifts matter most:

• Performance, data & AI at the core
  Performance media, CRM and analytics are now the spine of many UK agencies, not just the reporting layer. Buyers expect significant experience and want to see how data and AI are improving targeting and efficiency.

• Live & experiential as hard infrastructure
  From the Premier League and major sports to festivals, pop-ups, conferences and B2B events, live is no longer a side show. UK agencies that can design and deliver big moments – and then turn that attention into lasting brand impact and commercial results – are increasingly being treated as core strategic partners. Dublin is playing a similar role at Irish scale - a concentrated hub where experiences, hospitality and business events intersect.

• Influencer, creator & paid social becoming structural
  Influencer and creator programmes have moved from 'test budget' to core channel. The most interesting assets run always-on, data-backed creator programmes that plug directly into paid social, retail media and CRM – not just once-off campaigns.

• Martech and adtech stacks are consolidating
  Marketers are rationalising tools around a smaller number of platforms for data, automation and media. This is creating demand for UK and Irish partners who can design, integrate and run those stacks, and for specialists who fix hard problems in identity and measurement.

2. Deal signals you shouldn’t ignore

A handful of recent deals already point to where 2026 may go.

• Accenture × MomentumABM (B2B performance & growth)
  Accenture acquired London-headquartered MomentumABM, recognised for account-based marketing and B2B growth strategy, folding it into Accenture Song.
  Signal: performance and data-driven B2B platforms are high on buyer lists.

• MarketBridge × Revere (B2B tech & channel marketing)
  US growth firm MarketBridge acquired Revere, a UK B2B technology marketing agency, doubling its European headcount.
  Signal: international platforms are using UK B2B specialists as foundations for wider European growth.

• Brave Bison / SocialChain × The Fifth (influencer & creator)
  Brave Bison’s social practice SocialChain agreed a deal to acquire The Fifth, News UK’s multi-award-winning influencer marketing agency.
  Signal: scaled, creator-led agencies with strong measurement and blue-chip clients are now firmly in M&A territory.

• Havas Play × Bearded Kitten (experiential & live)
  Havas just acquired the highly awarded XP agency Bearded Kitten, integrating it into Havas Play to strengthen its brand experience offering and deepen its capabilities in immersive, tech-led activations for global brands.
  Signal: global networks are treating experiential and live brand experiences as core infrastructure, not side projects.

• Shamrock Capital × Penta / Hume Brophy (public affairs & corporate PR)
  Disney-backed Shamrock Capital agreed to acquire Penta, the global advisory firm that owns Dublin-headquartered public affairs agency Hume Brophy.
  Signal: Irish corporate and public affairs firms punch above their weight, and upstream independents with international reach continue to be firmly on PE radars.

We are generally seeing more cross-border activity where Dublin-based agencies and platforms feature as part of a wider UK or European story – especially where they sit in high spend eco systems such as EU public affairs or Ireland’s tech industry.

3. Live, performance and creator are sought-after skills

We see growing M&A traction across a number of key specialisms.

• Live & experiential
  Agencies that deliver complex live experiences – sport, entertainment, retail, conferences – and tie them into content and performance are seeing strong inbound interest. Buyers increasingly view live as a way to 'own the moment' and fuel always-on programmes. Dublin’s dense mix of conferences, corporate events and sport makes it a natural focal point for consolidating experiential and live marketing capability.

• Performance, data & AI
  Performance is the centre of gravity for many transactions - paid media, retail media, marketplaces, CRO and lifecycle marketing. The most attractive targets show how data and AI drive experimentation, attribution and optimisation that clients can see in the numbers.

• Influencer & creator
  The UK is one of Europe’s most mature creator markets, with Ireland increasingly plugged into the same ecosystem. Buyers care less about follower counts and more about structured, repeatable programmes, clean contracts and clear links into paid, CRM and retail media.

• Martech and platform enablement
  Consultancies and agencies that can design, implement and run marketing technology stacks – from CRM and customer data through to measurement – are an increasingly important part of the deal landscape, especially where they sit close to major platforms and sectors.

The most interesting assets in 2026 – whether performance, live, creator or platform-led – will be those that join the dots between story, data, experience and outcomes.

4. What will drive 2026 M&A?

Five themes are likely to shape the next wave:

• Competition to acquire smaller players
  This crowded market has proved fertile ground for private equity. Funds are seeding new specialist platforms, starting with founder-led businesses in the £1.5m–£3m EBITDA range with in-demand positioning, while existing PE-backed groups chase the same assets as bolt-ons for EBITDA arbitrage.

• AI and data as deal filters
  AI now sits firmly on the checklist. Buyers want to know how AI is used in workflows, targeting, optimisation and reporting, how first-party data and content is handled, and how all of this supports defensible differentiation.

• Consolidation of scaled independents
  Ongoing demand for 30+ person performance and data agencies, scaled experiential and live-event groups, upstream PR and influencer / creator shops with national or international clients.

• Experiential as a strategic asset
  As major sports properties, entertainment franchises and B2B events expand, experiential platforms become a way to own physical audience attention and generate content and data that feeds CRM and performance. Many more majority and significant minority deals are likely, especially for companies based in either London or Dublin.

• Retail media and infrastructure
  Creator-led retail media is growing fast, with the DOOH and programmatic technology close behind. However brands still struggle to see who they’re really reaching and what sales are truly incremental. Solutions to this will certainly attract M&A, particularly for UK or Irish businesses ready to scale across Europe.

5. What this means for founders

2026 could be a defining year for UK-based marketing businesses, with Ireland increasingly part of the story. Most serious processes now involve private equity somewhere in the chain and buyers are becoming a lot more selective.

Ask yourself:

• Is our positioning sharp enough (performance, experiential, influencer-led, event-tech etc), or are we still too 'full-service by default'?

• Can we prove repeatable, data-backed value – not just one-off case studies or showreels – across live, creator and paid channels?

• How ready are we for diligence on numbers, governance, data and AI?