Influencing change, skills gaps, hiring priorities: 5 interesting stats from Salary Survey 2022

Marketers’ confidence in their ability to drive change rises

Exclusive data from the 2022 Marketing Week Career and Salary Survey suggests marketers are feeling a greater sense of confidence in their ability to push for change in business.

Some 17% of the 4,463 marketers surveyed say they feel ‘very confident’ in their ability to influence change in their organisation, while 43.3% feel ‘somewhat confident’.

This measure could be connected to the fact 30.9% of respondents believe marketing has attained a greater strategic role over the past 12 months. A further 14.8% say marketing is better appreciated and 13.4% believe marketing is seen as more influential.

The confidence marketers feel in their ability to influence change appears to be closely linked to the fact brands have woken up to marketing’s strategic power following two years of crisis, coupled with the longer term trend for greater accountability and robust measures of effectiveness.

Source: 2022 Marketing Week Career and Salary Survey

Data and analytics is the most sought after skill in marketing

Data and analytics has emerged as the key skills gap in marketing, with a third of marketers (33.4%) identifying it as the main talent issue for their business.

This is followed by content and copywriting skills (17.6%), performance marketing expertise (17.3%), social media talent (15.6%) and ecommerce skills (14.6%).

The fact marketers are reporting a data and analytics skills gap ties in with the growing importance of data in business, as brands fight for talent to help them make sense of customer insight, channel data and the impact of their media spend.

Source: 2022 Marketing Week Career and Salary Survey

Businesses increasingly seeking out data specialists

Given the fact a third of marketers have identified a data and analytics skills gap in their organisation, it is hardly surprising data specialist is emerging as the most in-demand role for 27.3% of businesses.

This is closely followed by content managers (24.9%), social media managers (23.8%) and performance marketing managers (19.2%).

To a lesser extent, marketers have also seen demand rise for ecommerce managers (16.9%) and paid social managers (11.7%), as the so-called ‘Great Resignation’ sees marketing talent look around in greater numbers for new job opportunities.

Source: 2022 Marketing Week Career and Salary Survey

Companies twice as likely to hire external talent to fill skills gaps

The exclusive Career and Salary Survey data clearly shows a preference in business to hire external talent to solve the skills gap, rather than upskill from within.

Brands are almost twice as likely to bring in external talent to bolster their workforce (40.1%) than they are to train existing staff (21.3%).

The suggestion is companies trying to fill gaps in data, content and social media, for example, are looking to recruit talent that can hit the ground running from the outset, rather than taking time to upskill their existing workforce.

Source: 2022 Marketing Week Career and Salary Survey

More than half of marketers hit by team restructures

If marketers thought the career upheaval of the past two years was dialling down, they might be in for a shock.

Team restructures have accelerated over the past 12 months, according to the Career and Salary Survey data. More than half of marketers (56.5%) have experienced new team structures in the past year, compared to 46.3% in 2021.

Furthermore, more than a quarter of marketers (26.1%) have seen their team merged with another department during the past 12 months, up from 22.6% last year.

Specialisms are being added to teams at a greater rate than in 2021. Some 24.4% of marketers have seen specialisms added to their team over the past year, versus 15.4% last year.

There is, however, less pronounced change when it comes to specialisms being removed (10.3% in 2022 versus 10.6% in 2021) and the shift to agile working or squad-based teams (14.8% in 2022 versus 15.5% in 2021).

Source: 2022 Marketing Week Career and Salary Survey