AKQA Reviews

Former Employee – worked at AKQA full-time for more than a year

Pros – The work is usually varied, and projects are beautiful and innovative. Wonderful offices, very friendly colleagues, culture of politeness, good equipment, central location surrounded by bars/cafes, travel opportunities.

Cons – Every project is a ground-up restart with few lessons shared or work re-used. The pay is uncompetitive compared to other industry roles, and hiring is done more on cultural fit than skill. Getting development support is hard. Managers are great at their day jobs, but poor at managing people and their development. It's easy to feel overlooked and interchangeable. There's a rule on 'no promotions or pay-rises within a year of joining', regardless of performance. There's a rigid career ladder and there's no scope to carve out new roles - skills outside the narrow job spec will not be recognised or used.

Advice to Senior Management – Please develop your senior managers. Many are incumbents who aren't that effective. Many manage by giving a 'thumbs up' to initiatives from their teams, but won't support initiatives and can't make things happen. The founder's monthly hyperbole-and-air emails make staff roll their eyes, and set a bad precedent for the VPs, who attempt to do the same and just look disconnected.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at AKQA full-time

Pros – - great experience
- never boring
- challenging
- only the best work there

Cons – - clients can be over demanding
- work life balance can be difficult to balance

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at AKQA full-time

Pros – Great people to work with - you will make some great friends.

Cons – Its a bit like the wild west in there, which worked when the business was much smaller. It now needs structure and investment to support its size, but that doesn't seem to be happening. As far as I can see it will continue to suffer from a lack of planning.

Advice to Senior Management – Get some people in who know who to operate a business this size/

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at AKQA full-time for more than a year

Pros – -great clients
-looks good on cv
-a lot of employees are great, smart and genuine about getting the work done
-the social life is good

Cons – - very, very high turnover. Such a shame they have lost so many good, but very frustrated, people
- management.
- HR are dysfunctional/not empowered or both. Don't rely on them to solve issues
- lots of talk, promises etc and little follow through. The inspirational leader is a rare beast here.
- planning- high use of freelancers, lots of personnel change and last minute deadlines that could be averted with just a bit of planning

Advice to Senior Management – Open your eyes and stop avoiding the obvious. Walk the talk.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at AKQA full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Excellent talent.
Award winning work.
Global offices/opportunities.
Good culture.
Good facilities.

Cons – Getting a little process heavy.
Not as agile as some agencies.

Advice to Senior Management – I think they're doing as good a job as possible given the size of the agency. Continue to concentrated on hiring the best talent and motivating them to success/

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at AKQA full-time for more than a year

Pros – Good people, good work and projects, you feel involved into the teams straight away.

Cons – Projects don't come on a regular basis
Self-Management (could be a pro, but it tires you at the end)

Advice to Senior Management – Look after the people you are working with.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at AKQA full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – The people, the work, the opportunities, the clients.

Cons – The expectation and acceptance that working over 10 hours a day is normal and the fabric of what makes the agency so great.

Advice to Senior Management – Spend less time congratulating yourselves and more time setting up frameworks and progression for employees.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at AKQA full-time for more than a year

Pros – - Working for world class brands
- Learning so much from all the talent in the company even from other departments and roles
- Great sense of teamwork, especially when you have a tough client, you're all going through it together.
- Most but not all of the execs are seated around everyone else, that says something.

Cons – - Be prepared to put in the hours and then some.

Advice to Senior Management – Create a more inspiring office environment or get a new one, Even banks have more creative ones these days.

Current Employee – been working at AKQA full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Great talent in creative. Great clients to do work for. Perfect employer if you need a couple of years to really ramp up your cv

Cons – We can be a bit full of ourselves at times. Our management can be slightly out of touch with the "people". Late nights and slightly underpaid is standard.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at AKQA full-time for more than a year

Pros – AKQA is brilliant! The people that I work with are super smart, fun and passionate about what they do. We've become really good friends over the numerous socials like BarAsics (free Monthly drinks), FryDays (all agency breakfasts) and parties - it's a very extended and diverse family :-). Benefits are good and there are lots of little things that make a real difference like free fruit, massages and ice-creams. The pace is really fast and the work ethic is second to none so you've got to have bags of passion and energy. I was promoted in my first year here and I'm going on secondment to another office soon so I can't see myself running out of opportunities here anytime soon. There's always lots of formal training running and you're constantly learning during your the day from either the work that you're doing or from the people in your team. The days just fly by and there's never a dull moment.

Cons – Working at AKQA is challenging.....it's got a reputation as a sweat shop which is certainly not the case but you will work really hard. Everyone is so driven and committed to pushing the boundaries so if you're not prepared to put quality and excellence first then this isn't the place for you. I can honestly say hand on heart that the blood, sweat & tears are worth it and it becomes easier as time goes on. I'm so proud of the work and I love working here with such awesome people.

Advice to Senior Management – Talk to us..... we want to know that you've got a plan and how we are doing. It's great that everyone is so laidback and non hierachical but we also need to feel that someone is in charge. The updates before Barasics help but we need to share more information, commercials etc.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company