Playbooks / United Kingdom
// playbook · UKA retainer market that has not repriced since 2019, staffed by editors who cost £30–60 an hour.
UK agencies buy capacity for retained social work: reels, product video and paid-social cuts for retail, fashion, property and B2B. The buyer is usually an account director protecting a retainer, not a marketer shopping for a production company. That distinction decides everything about how the work is briefed.
British-English is not American-English with different spelling. £ pricing, VAT-correct rounding, a named UK courier, date format, and idiom that does not read imported. A transatlantic voice on a Yorkshire-made product reads fake within two seconds, which is why burned-in subtitles and a UK voice are the first things to get right and the first things to be cut when a budget tightens.
A mid-level UK editor is £30–60 an hour, £45,000–75,000 a year once employer NI, pension and a software seat are counted, and produces a reel at £150–280 fully loaded. That is the number a block is measured against — not what a competitor charges. The comparison that matters is cost per finished reel against a fixed monthly cost, because the fixed cost does not move when the calendar empties.
The trap is pricing against a hire instead of against the calendar. A quiet February makes a salary look affordable and a block look unnecessary, right up until the work arrives in the same week as everything else.
The UK Block prices all of this on one published card — the same rules for a brand, an agency or a studio.