Working class marketers face 15.9% pay gap, survey reveals

Working class marketers are being paid less than their peers, according to exclusive data from Marketing Week’s 2024 Career & Salary Survey. 

The mean socio-economic pay gap for full-time workers is 15.9%. This figure is down both on the 18.2% pay gap reported in 2023, and 2022’s gap of 19.1%. 

Ethnic minority marketers face 8.5% pay gap, survey revealsHowever, marketing’s class pay gap is above the 12% average identified by the Social Mobility Foundation in 2023, equivalent to £6,291 less a year. 

Marketing, alongside the wider creative industry, has a reputation for being inaccessible to people from underrepresented backgrounds. Alongside the socio-economic pay gap, Marketing Week has identified a gender pay gap of 16% (down from 16.5% in 2023) and an ethnicity pay gap of 8.5%, a slight improvement on last year’s 10.2%. 

Marketing Week digs into 2024’s class pay gap further in this in-depth feature, which reveals the disparity in pay across different marketing jobs. 

Over the coming weeks, Marketing Week will be publishing a series of exclusive news and features based on the findings of the 2024 Career & Salary Survey, including the impact of tightening budgets, pay disparities and the state of marketing salaries. Click here to view everything we’ve published so far.