Skills gaps, wage rises, marketing tenure: 5 interesting stats from Salary Survey 2023

Data remains the biggest skills gap in marketing departments

For the second year in a row, a lack of data and analytics skills has been identified as the top skills gap within marketing departments.

Exclusive data from the 2023 Marketing Week Career and Salary Survey reveals over a third (34.4%) of the more than 3,000 marketers surveyed say data and analytics skills is the key gap within their team, followed some way behind by a lack of content and copywriting skills (21.4%).

Some 20% of respondents identify a lack of social media skills as a key issue, with 18.7% highlighting a lack of performance marketing skills.

Just 15.9% of the marketers surveyed say a lack of ecommerce skills within their department is a major concern.

Source: 2023 Marketing Week Career and Salary Survey

Almost half of marketers saw wages rise in 2022

Despite the continuing inflation crisis, some brands appear keen to keep investing – financially at least – in their marketing talent.

Almost half of the marketers surveyed (46%) say they received a salary increase in 2022. That said, moving up the career ladder was less likely. Just 16.3% of marketers received a promotion last year, while for 10.9% an expected promotion was delayed or made unlikely.

Some 14.6% of the more than 3,000 respondents were asked by their employer to do more hours or overtime in 2022.

Thankfully, just 6.8% of the sample were asked to take a cut in compensation – either in terms of bonus or pay – and fewer (5.7%) were made redundant. Only 4.8% of the marketers surveyed had their hours reduced in 2022.

Source: 2023 Marketing Week Career and Salary Survey

Over a fifth of marketers have been in their role under 12 months

A year on from the pandemic-fuelled ‘Great Resignation’, Marketing Week data suggests more than a fifth of marketers (27.3%) have been in their role for 12 months or less.

This number is roughly the same as last year, when 27.9% of marketers had tenure of under a year.

Most marketers surveyed for the 2023 Career and Salary Survey have been in their current job for between one to three years (39.4%). This figure means 67.3% of respondents have only been in their current role for a maximum of three years.

A lower percentage of 18.5% of marketers have been in their current position for four to six years, a figure which falls by more than half to 8.3% for those in role for seven to 10 years.

Source: 2023 Marketing Week Career and Salary Survey

A quarter of marketers feel their business is failing to support diverse talent

A quarter (24.1%) of the 3,000 marketers surveyed by Marketing Week believe their company is not doing enough to offer career opportunities to people from a variety of socio-economic and demographic backgrounds.

This number rises to 28.3% among marketers from large organisations (with 250 employees and over) and those who work in brands mixing B2B and B2C operations.

While 23.3% of white marketers are not happy with their company’s approach to supporting talent from diverse socio-economic and demographic backgrounds, this number rises to 26.5% among marketers from mixed/multiple ethnic groups, 30.4% among Asian/British Asian marketers and 46.9% among marketers who identify as black, African Caribbean or black British.

Female marketers (27%) are more likely than their male peers (19%) to believe their company is not doing enough to support diverse talent.

Source: 2023 Marketing Week Career and Salary Survey

Most brands have adopted a hybrid working style

While brands such as Disney and Twitter have come out in recent weeks calling on employees to return to the office, the approach being taken by most brands suggests hybrid working is here to stay.

Well over half of marketers (56.2%) say their business is taking a hybrid approach to work, mixing days at home with days in the office.

However, more than a fifth of those surveyed (26.4%) say their business is fully flexible, giving employees the opportunity to choose whatever working patterns best fit them.

Just 11.1% of marketers work for a company where they are required to be back in the office five days a week, while fewer still (4%) have closed their office and opted to work completely remotely.

Source: 2023 Marketing Week Career and Salary Survey

Over the coming weeks Marketing Week will be publishing a series of exclusive news stories and features from our 2023 Career and Salary Survey, including exploring skills gaps, examining the industry’s hiring intentions and analysing of the state of marketing salaries. Check out the first piece in the series revealing the lack of cost of living support being offered to marketers.