Pay rises haven't been substantial in advertising and marketing in 2022 despite agencies paying inflated salaries to get new talent through the door, according to recruiters.
Specialist marketing work-solutions company Aquent analysed 8,266 base salaries in December 2022 using a real-time salary comparison tool, Compare My Salary, to build the 2023 Salary Guide.
The recruiters suspect that the lack of industry pay rises is due to budgets tightening as economic headwinds take hold.
Annie Sharrock, talent agent - digital marketing, content and communication - Aquent Australia, told AdNews: “Given the lack of supply and the high demand for talent over the past few years, I was actually surprised that there were no more dramatic changes in salaries over the past 12 months.
“I’m guessing businesses anticipated an economic slow down which led to a cooling of demand for permanent staff as they re-evaluated future plans.
“We believe this will translate into more contract opportunities as businesses tighten budgets and become more cautious.”
Agencies also believe that demand for permanent staff will be replaced by contract workers as a different type of talent war unfolds in 2023.
Karen Monjo, talent agent - digital design and development - Aquent Australia, said: “Overall in the creative design space salaries have increased slightly but not enough to accommodate the increased cost of living in my opinion.
“[Although] the significant jump is at the senior level, with the ability for creative directors having salaries increase from a median of $150k in 2022 to $217k in 2023.”
Kate Verran, talent specialist - UX, CX and service design - Aquent Australia, said: “There are large salary increases across product design of all levels — combined with very little movement on UI Design salaries.
“This aligns with a move towards more adaptable, full-stack design skills that encompass end-to-end UX / UI capabilities.
“Increase in lead and senior level service design salaries – certainly aligning to a trend for clients looking to move forward with transformation and future vision after the initial pivot online due to Covid.
“Further motivated by things like inclusive design and accessibility, open banking and cybersecurity threats.”
Jimmy Sutton, talent agent - digital marketing, content and analytics - Aquent Australia said: “A silver lining from Covid was the accelerated digital transformation that businesses have needed to go through to survive.
“So, it’s great to see the emergence of new senior digital leadership roles like the head of e-commerce. This is a title that didn’t come up once in the 5000+ people surveyed in 2022 – however this year there are over 50 people in this position with a top bracket of $260k!"
Another possible reason for unchanged salaries could be the continued niching of roles and dispersing of talent.
For example, many seniors have moved to or started their own independent agencies and small local businesses.
Monjo: “With everything that is going on in the world right now, I’m not surprised that there hasn’t been a huge jump in salaries in the creative space.
“A lot of freelancers opted towards stability around permanent employment, therefore, bringing more candidates to the market and evening out the playing ground.”
Sharrock: “What was interesting to observe was that roles are becoming more and more segmented.
"There seem to be more silos of specific skill sets that have evolved from the data decision-making focus and the technologies that support it.
“The generalist marketing manager role seems to be a thing of the past in larger organisations and what is coming to the forefront is more defined roles.”
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