LONDON—Edelman has the strongest employer brand in the European public relations business, with more than 200 respondents to our Best Consultancies to Work For survey citing the world’s largest independent among the top three agencies they would most like to work for if they had to leave their current firm.

Edelman received more than twice as many votes as the second strongest employer brand, Ogilvy (cited by 60 respondents) ahead of Ketchum (55), Weber Shandwick (50) and Hill+Knowlton Strategies (49).

But the majority of respondents to the survey are quite happy where they are: more than 1,000 answered either “none” or that the question was not applicable—another 40 indicated that they would go in-house rather than join another agency and close to 30 said they would start their own agency rather than going to work for another firm.

The top 10 agencies (based on a points system, with more points for a first choice position than a second or third choice):

  1. Edelman -- 368
  2. Ogilvy PR -- 134
  3. Ketchum -- 118
  4. Weber Shandwick -- 112
  5. Golin -- 101
  6. Hill+Knowlton -- 94
  7. Blue Rubicon -- 89
  8. Hope & Glory -- 68
  9. FleishmanHillard -- 62
  10. Burson-Marsteller -- 61

There were more than twice as many UK-based consultancies taking part in the survey as consultancies from the continent, which clearly skewed the results and ensured that several UK-based firms scored high marks. The best included:

  1. Blue Rubicon -- 89
  2. Hope & Glory -- 68
  3. Portland -- 51
  4. Lewis PR -- 49
  5. Brunswick -- 48
  6. Freud -- 35
  7. Mischief -- 33
  8. Frank -- 32
  9. Hotwire -- 30
  10. M&C Saatchi -- 27
    We Are Social                27

Similarly, the firms that fared well in the continental rankings tended to be based in markets where there were high participation rates:

  1. Het PR Bureau (Netherlands) -- 37
  2. Apple Tree (Spain) -- 30
  3. Fink & Fuchs (Germany) -- 29
  4. Barabino (Italy) -- 21
  5. FischerAppelt (Germany) -- 20

Overall, and not surprisingly, Europe was much more fragmented in terms of employer branding than the US, with a high degree of regional variance.