Our latest annual Market Report shares salary and day-rate data for the marketing, digital, communications and investor relations disciplines, as well as eight sectors. Not only that, we further analyse the pay gender pay gap.
Who earns the most? Which sector is best to work for? And has the gender pay gap improved? Read on and download your copy of the report below to find out.
The sector factor
The report sheds light on the differences that marketing, digital and communications professionals face when working for different sectors. What could this mean for your next career move, or where your next hire could come from?
Depending on skill-set, sector can greatly shape our careers. Marketing jobs are particularly sector focused; a product marketing job in FMCG is vastly different to a marketing manager job in Financial Services. Some digital and communications specialisms are more transferable across the industry as a whole, such as in-demand crisis management and SEO experts. However, most employers still seek sector experience when searching for their next hire.
So which sectors pay the best and worst? Below are average salaries across marketing, digital and communications jobs per sector. Click on each sector to find out more about it.
| Sector |
Average salary |
| Financial Services |
£69,035 |
| Technology & Telecoms |
£67,437 |
| Professional Services |
£65,504 |
| Business Services |
£60,287 |
| FMCG & Consumer |
£59,434 |
| Charity & Not-for-Profit |
£57,437 |
| Retail |
£57,192 |
| Media, Publishing & Events |
£57,156 |
So Is it best to work in Financial Services or Technology & Telecoms? Is pay everything? Is that the only tool in your candidate attraction armoury?
Well no, is the answer. Candidates change jobs not only for a higher salary, but also to seek out new challenges and improve their work culture or work-life balance. Both Technology & Telecoms and Financial Services are also the most flexible sectors. So they certainly are appearing to be attractive sectors for candidates. If your business is in these sectors and doesn't compete or pay or flexibility, then you could have a problem attracting the talent you want.
Find out more about benchmarking pay and working practices for your sector by downloading the report below.
The Gender Pay Gap
For the third year running we have monitored the gender pay gap amongst the marketing industry. Although women gained in terms of seniority this year, they still lagged 28% behind men's pay.
Why? Clearly there are many issues at play here, but could part of it be linked to sector? The lowest paying sectors also happen to have the highest proportion of women working in them.
Pay Report 2021
You can now download our latest report to access up to date salaries and day rates here.