What’s the average salary for a career in marketing?

The Office of National Statistics has released figures showing that those who work in marketing earn an average of £37,455  per year.

Their yearly survey showed that the average salary for men and women combined in the UK (across all jobs) was £29,009, which includes those in both full-time and part work. For those in full time work the average salary is £35,423 and £12,083 for those in part-time. Those working in the marketing industry therefore are slightly ahead of the national average, taking home just over £2k more each year.

How much can you earn with a career in marketing?

Unsurprisingly, marketing directors earned the top wage of all marketing roles, with the average wage for men and women per annum being £93,967 full-time and £32,980 part time, nearly three times the national average. Men in these roles full-time earned significantly more than their female counterparts, taking home £97,755 compared to £81,749 for women.

Public relations professionals (such as PR managers, PR assistant managers and communications managers) also took home higher than the national average, earning £37k full time and £15k part-time, which is £2k and £3k more respectively than their counterparts in other industries.

Associate professionals (such as marketing managers, social media managers, digital marketing specialists and research analysts) took home just under the national average when male and female wages were combined, earning an average of £34,180. Men in these roles, however, earned nearly £20k more than their female colleagues, with an average annual wage of £49,141 vs £29,443.

Content writers and graphic designers took home an annual wage of around £30,000 – with writers earning £33k and graphic designers £27k (men and women, full-time). The lowest wages recorded were for those in junior marketing roles, with a full-time salary of £17k and a part-time salary of £9k.

But wages are on the rise

All marketing professionals captured in their report showed a yearly salary increase of roughly 3%.

Directors cashed in the greatest percentage increase, with a 6.8% rise year on year. Associate marketing professionals and junior executives came in a close second, with an increase of 4.7% and 4.5% respectively. PR professionals, content writers and graphic designers saw the lowest percentage increase, between 0.8-1.7%, however in the full picture of the economy this is still very healthy.

The ONS UK workers are earning on average 2.5% more year on year. This is where it were sitting just before the 2008 financial crash, which saw a 300,000 people made redundant and an average salary decrease of -2.5% across the board, so good news for those job-hunting!

The gender pay gap in marketing

The ONS estimated that across all roles surveyed, there was an average of 9.3% difference between men’s salaries and women’s salaries, with men earning this amount more than women per hour.

Some marketing roles, however, saw a significant pay gap. Women associate marketing professionals earn 17.4% less than their male counterparts. Content editors saw the second highest gap, with female writers taking home 18.1% less per hour than men in the same role. Directors saw a small gap, at 12%, and web professionals the smallest,  with women taking home 4.6% less than men,

You can see the full breakdown of male and female salaries full-time for the marketing industry below:

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