London Market for juniors

Hello everyone, apologies for the long wall of text.

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Hoping some London based peeps can give me and my partner some advice. Some background, neither of us has attended portfolio school and have been scrapping by on placements for about 10 months. We've been on some good agencies (i.e. Mother) and some less interesting ones (CRM, below the line stuff). We generally receive really strong reviews on our book and have finally reached a level where we consistenly hear that we should go for junior jobs, not placements. Plus I hate to say it but we've heard a few times that on top of having great attitude and great work we tick a SHIT ton of diversity boxes which agencies seem to be floundering to fill. It's a nice extra that makes us stand out even more.

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We have been at the same agency since September and they have asked us to remain until February (originally staying for two months, then till Christmas). They said they're 90% on hiring us, but want to give us some goals and finalise financials. We're pretty sure we're getting an offer at the end of this period, we gelled extremely well with everybody and they really like us.

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Thing is... The agency is like... Ok. It has some big clients and has won some amazing pitches, making a good name for itself with some really incredible CDs and in the New Bus dept. But they really seem to struggle to get interesting work out. Is all just kinda meh. Not terrible or horrible but you can tell they struggle to sell the really good ideas to client and frankly CEO/Owner is all over the creative department like a bad rash. We lack a really strong planning department. Tend to get hyper focused on the wrong thing. So we're not sure what to do.

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On one hand it'd be a steady income (which would be nice), we'd get the 'Junior' on our CV (finally), we like the CDs, it's a small independet shop so we'd probably get access to good briefs and have the directors ears if needed. On the other hand we know we'd probably receive an offer well below the market rate and we're very conscious of the issues above. Plus, tbh is not really a place that we feel massively challanged by. They love our work and the CDs have an impressive point of view and pedigree... But we just feel like we can get away with not much to be really honest which doesn't feel like a place you want the foundations of your career on. On top of it Mother has told us they'd gladly have us back in March/April (they were our very first placement and told us to stay in touch, they liked us, but we needed more experience). We're also conscious that we haven't actually spoken to any recruiters yet.

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I guess our lack of experience is showing. We're not sure if out concerns are legitimate enough in a market that frankly doesn't seem to be all that stable. Would we be better off staying in this agency knowing that it might not be super long term or should we take our chances and put our network to good use again? It doesn't feel like we'd struggle for placements if I'm honest. Opinions on these rambles would be much appreciated.