Retail, leisure and travel salaries & market trends

What key trends have you witnessed  in 2017?

There has been some bold moves within Retail this year as established e-commerce brands enter the high street and traditional brick and mortar retailers fight to remain relevant online. Because of this, there has been a rise in demand for omni-channel expertise as brands seek marketers that can effectively communicate to their customers and enhance their customer experience across all touch points. In addition, customers have become a lot more conscious about the quality, source and manufacturing process of their products. On the back of this, we have seen a rise in brand communications roles to either change perception or establish themselves as an ethical retailer.

Digital acquisition and customer experience professionals were in high demand within retail. With online giants like Amazon, retailers need to ensure they are driving customers through their own channels as well as offering more of a tailored customer experience both online and in-store that ecommerce brands simply can’t offer.

In leisure and travel, CRM is still very much in demand. Customers are spending less on leisure and focusing more on the essential purchases and therefore it has never been more important for brands to keep their loyal and higher spending customers engaged. As social media continues to be such an integral part of daily life, influencers and travel bloggers have naturally become a crucial part of many leisure and travel brands’ strategy. As a result, we’ve seen a significant increase of digital PR, content and social roles. 

What key trends do you expect to see over the next 12 months?

Within the retail sector, brands will continue to search for unique ways to improve their in-store experience. We predict in-store marketing roles will innovate in line with technology moving and become a desirable skill-set across the industry.

We expect influencers and bloggers to continue to hold a lot of weight within leisure and travel marketing, as well as an increase in brand communications roles in the larger businesses as they overcome the stigma attached with the larger brands ability to offer the very much desired “authentic experience”.

What methods are companies using to attract and retain the top talent?

In 2017, we saw companies investing more time and money on improving their employer brand and in many cases, incorporating this into their wider marketing strategy. Companies have invested more into training and development and encourage “first day starter packs” to be shared on social media in order to attract and retain employees through positive brand reinforcement. Companies have also made a conscious effort to invest in diversity and inclusion tactics, particularly female equality, working parents and the LGBT+ community. 

Do you anticipate any changes to permanent salaries and bonuses over  the next 12 months?

We expect minimal change in salaries, however performance-related bonuses will continue to rise in digital roles as they clearly demonstrate their ROI. The growing reliance on strong insight professionals will no doubt continue to drive salaries up. However, as retail, leisure and travel industries continually look to make their business models leaner, we don’t envisage a dramatic lift for any general marketing roles.

Contract roles & day rates

In 2017, we saw an increase in the number of interim consumer marketing positions, especially campaign and CRM roles as companies were focusing more on consumer relationships and customer loyalty. 
 
We predict the skills that will be in demand into 2018 will be CRM, email and marketing automation, and campaign experience including offers and promotions, retention, customer acquisition and loyalty. Each year customers are being more conscious of marketing tactics and their expectations of brand interactions are a lot higher – consumers want original, personalised shopping experiences. Because of this, B2C marketing candidates that can deliver exceptionally targeted and personalised content are highly sought after.