Chief growth officer among most in demand roles for 2023

While layoffs and hiring pauses ripple across the industry, growth related roles are the fastest-growing jobs in marketing, sales and media, according to new data from LinkedIn.

The 2023 Jobs on the Rise list, shared exclusively with Marketing Week, highlights the increasing importance of driving business growth in 2023, at a time when companies are worried about their next steps.

The fastest-growing marketing and sales job in the UK is customer success consultant, followed by sustainability manager, product operations manager and sales development representative.

In fifth place is chief growth officer, with growth marketing manager coming in seventh. In between the two growth roles is enterprise account executive.

Sales and marketing roles are among the fastest growing jobs globally, vice-president EMEA and Latin America for LinkedIn Talent Solutions, Olivier Sabella, tells Marketing Week.

“In periods of uncertainty, it is easy for companies to become insular, but it is important to remain focused on customers – engaging with them, delivering value and keeping your brand front-of-mind,” he says, noting customer-centric roles are highly valued amid a “global hiring” slowdown.

Eighth on the UK-specific list is cloud engineer, followed by business development representative.

The role of chief people officer is also among the fastest-growing roles, ranking 10th, ahead of data science manager in 11th. At the bottom of the list is site reliability engineer, data engineer, security operations centre analyst and workplace coordinator.

While growth marketing manager sits at seventh in the list of UK fastest growing roles, it tops the list for France. In Germany, the more general growth manager role is second on the list. Interestingly, chief growth officer does not appear in the top 15 list of fastest growing marketing and sales roles in either France, Germany or Australia – the other countries studied.

Furthermore, LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index suggests confidence levels for UK professionals when it comes to landing a job remain “steady” year-on-year, against an uncertain backdrop.

A changing tide

Casting back to 2021, social media coordinator was the fastest growing role (19%) within marketing and brand jobs, according to the LinkedIn data, alongside community manager (18.1%) and social media assistant (16.5%).

Two years ago, the chief marketing officer role was among the jobs on the rise (13.8%), yet in 2023 the position of CMO does not rank within the list of the fifteen fastest-risers.

In fact, many marketing-specific job functions, such as senior marketing manager, brand director and brand strategist – which all ranked within the top 10 in 2021 – are nowhere to be seen this year.

Separate research from LinkedIn, shared exclusively with Marketing Week in September, found digital marketing was the top rated marketing skill in 2022, while in 2015 social media marketing claimed the top spot.

Speaking at the time, head of EMEA and LATAM at LinkedIn’s B2B Institute, Mimi Turner, was encouraged to see a “strong balance” of skills.

“What we’re seeing is very much now marketers with a 360-toolkit. You’ve got to have these technical skills, these tactical abilities, this broad view, this strategic view, content skills,” she stated.

“Marketers have responded by having a more holistic set of capabilities. It’s like when you break your leg and it sets again, our skillset is set using that as a reality.”