When specialist talent management recruiters SUMO released their latest industry report, there was clearly plenty to celebrate for those working in the talent management space. Growth is up. Attrition is down. Tenure is improving across every agency size and type. By most measures, this is an industry in good health and the data reflects actual progress. But, if you were to read the report in full, two broader themes emerge – ones that requires agencies and their staff to ask themselves two hard-hitting questions.
Are egos pushing up job titles?
The first is about the relationship between job titles and seniority. SUMO’s report identifies a growing imbalance at Director and Head of Talent level. Digital talent management is, by any measure, a relatively young industry. The creator economy that underpins much of its growth has only reached commercial maturity in the last five or six years – which means the pipeline of professionals with seven or more years of meaningful experience is, unsurprisingly, still catching up with demand. Those who combine real seniority with specific expertise are, as SUMO puts it, in significant demand and short supply. Seemingly gone are the days when an employee would have to put in years of dedication and hard graft to even be in with a shout of a salary increase, let alone a promotion. Now this can seemingly be achieved from one annual review to another.
Some agencies have responded by promoting quickly, using senior titles to signal scale and ambition to clients, candidates and competitors. It’s an instinct that’s easy to understand, particularly in a competitive market where perception – for better or worse – matters. SUMO’s view, though, is that the industry would be better served by resisting it – not as a criticism of the individuals receiving those titles but because currently, there is a potential risk of stifling the next generation of talent managers. Surely,the longer-term answer lies in creating an environment, training and pathways for future senior professionals to develop, rather than accelerating the timeline on paper?
It’s a fair point that reflects where the industry is in its maturity curve. The creator economy has grown fast. The talent management infrastructure around it has been building to keep pace. The agencies investing seriously in structured development, mentorship and career progression now are likely to be the ones with the deepest senior benches in three to five years’ time – not just in titles (and salaries to go with it), but in measurable skillsets and experience.
Is the ‘WFH v ‘WFO’ argument now dead?
The second theme is around working patterns. Specifically, the move by some agencies to reduce or remove hybrid flexibility over the past twelve months.
The desire to bring teams back together more consistently is something many agency leaders will relate to (and staff will likely resist). Talent management is a relationship-driven business, and there’s a genuine case to be made for in-person culture, collaboration and the kind of organic knowledge-sharing that happens when teams share a space. This isn’t just siloed to management industries, but many working in the creative sector.
What SUMO’s data suggests, however, is that full return-to-office mandates are having unintended consequences in some cases. Contributing to attrition and narrowing the candidate pool in a market where senior talent is already hard to find. Hybrid working has become so embedded in this industry over recent years that moving away from it entirely, rather than refining it, appears to be creating friction. So, as some companies weigh-up a return to pre-Covid ways of working, agency founders and MDs should be asking themselves what they value more – productivity or team morale – and if this is a battle still worth fighting?
The nuance here matters. This isn’t an argument against offices or in-person culture, it’s an observation that the talent management sector has a particular set of working norms that have become expectations rather than perks, and that policies which run counter to those norms carry a cost that’s worth factoring into the decision.
What connects them
Both themes, in different ways, point to the same underlying question: what does sustainable growth in this industry actually look like?
SUMO’s report is incredibly optimistic in its outlook and the data supports that optimism. The improvements across tenure, attrition and headcount growth are meaningful, and the structural shifts the report identifies – from expert-led divisions to the evolution of model agencies – point to a sector with real momentum and range.
The value of a report like this, though, is not just in the headline numbers. It’s in the more considered questions it surfaces alongside them about how to build senior teams that last, and how to create the working environments that attract and retain the people needed to sustain the growth the industry is clearly capable of.
SUMO’s February 2026 Talent Management Insights Report is available to SUMO clients. You can read our initial coverage here.
