Using ONS data as context for SEO software budgets

What to take away

ASHE 2024 provisional figures put median full-time weekly pay in North West England near £690 and in Greater London near £815, a ratio of about 1.18.
A six-seat SEO software stack at named list prices costs about £699 a month in both regions, so the cash gap is close to zero.
Against the illustrative retainer values used here, that same stack absorbs about 7.8% of a North West retainer book and about 4.9% of a London one, a gap near 3 percentage points.
Paid seats run from 6 to 9 per ten North West delivery staff against 9 to 14 in London, using a stated clients-per-strategist basis.
ONS data provides regional pay and agency-count context; build the budget from a seat basis and written vendor quotes.

ONS datasets for regional context

ASHE sits in the ONS employment statistics series, and EARN02 is the weekly earnings dataset most buyers cite. The ONS employment statistics hub holds the current tables.

The 2024 provisional ASHE release, published in October 2024, reports median gross full-time weekly pay near £690 in North West England and near £815 in Greater London. The ratio is about 1.18. The ONS release of 22 October 2026 puts UK median full-time weekly pay at £811.20 for April 2026, so refresh both regional figures before you budget.

UK Business Counts 2024 supplies the demand side. Rounded counts for SIC 73110, advertising agencies, put Greater London near 5,000 and the North West near 1,300.

ONS measures pay and firm counts, not software licences. Use it as regional context, then price tools from written vendor quotes.

A worked six-seat SEO software budget

Take a Manchester agency with 12 staff, six of whom work on client SEO each week. The stack is Semrush Pro for rank tracking and backlinks, Screaming Frog for crawling, with Google Search Console and Looker Studio free.

Vendors quote in dollars. Semrush Pro lists at $139.95 a month, about £111 at an illustrative £0.79 per dollar. Six seats cost about £666 a month. Screaming Frog is £199 a year per licence, about £33 a month for two.

The full stack lands near £699 a month.

Retainer values here are illustrative. Six North West clients at £1,500 gives £9,000 a month, so the stack takes 7.8%. Six London clients at £2,400 gives £14,400, so the stack takes 4.9%.

Hold the arithmetic in an SEO tools budget template so every seat carries a name, a tier and a price.

The percentage point gap is about 2.9. The relative burden is roughly 60% higher in the North West, even though the cash total is identical.

Regional ONS context for SEO software budgets

North West England

Median full-time weekly pay, ASHE 2024 provisional: about £690
Advertising agencies, SIC 73110, UK Business Counts 2024: about 1,300
Paid seats per ten delivery staff (basis: six clients per strategist in the North West, nine in London, plus one shared power seat): 6 to 9
Tool spend per paid seat per month at list price: £95 to £140
Stack cost as share of retainer revenue: about 7.8%
Compliance cost: same

Greater London

Median full-time weekly pay, ASHE 2024 provisional: about £815
Advertising agencies, SIC 73110, UK Business Counts 2024: about 5,000
Paid seats per ten delivery staff (basis: six clients per strategist in the North West, nine in London, plus one shared power seat): 9 to 14
Tool spend per paid seat per month at list price: £100 to £140
Stack cost as share of retainer revenue: about 4.9%
Compliance cost: same

The seat range has a stated basis rather than a rounded guess. London strategists carry more clients each, so more seats survive a budget review. For a side-by-side tool breakdown, London and Manchester agency SEO tool stacks compared sets out which categories each market pays for.

How to build a defensible per-seat budget

Pull the current ASHE median full-time weekly pay for your region and the 2024 UK Business Counts figure for SIC 73110.
Set the seat basisone seat per client-facing strategist, plus one shared power seat per tool.
Collect written list prices from each vendor, converting dollar quotes at a stated exchange rate.
Multiply seats by list price, then express the total as a share of retainer revenue.
Cap that share at the tighter of your region and your largest client contract.

The output is checkable because each line names a dataset, a seat logic and a price. A finance lead can audit it in one sitting.

Compliance and vendor claims

Data protection costs do not differ by region. A tool processing personal data creates the same obligation in Manchester and London. The ICO UK GDPR guidance sets out lawful basis and retention duties.

Vendor performance claims are regulated too. The ASA advertising codes cover comparative claims, so a premium tier bought on promised uplift needs checkable evidence.

Further considerations before you sign

Seat sprawl and duplicate crawling are the two budget leaks. Seat counts understate what UK buyers pay once onboarding, API overage and reconciliation time are added.

Hiring signals move the budget as well. A job advert naming four specific tools reveals the stack. A generalist role suggests shared seats and lower spend per head.

Common questions

How large is the SEO tool budget gap between the North West and Greater London?

In cash terms it is near zero for the same six-seat stack, about £699 a month. In budget share it is about 2.9 percentage points, or roughly 60% higher relative burden in the North West.

Which ONS datasets should I use?

ASHE, the EARN02 weekly earnings series, and UK Business Counts 2024 for SIC 73110. Neither lists SEO software prices.

What does SEO software cost per seat in each region?

List prices run about £95 to £140 a seat a month. Regional variation comes from tier mix and seat count, not a different headline price.

Should London teams hold more seats than Manchester teams?

Usually yes, because London strategists carry more clients each. The 9 to 14 seats per ten delivery staff figure reflects that client ratio.