2024 Salary Survey: marketing, PR and digital trends

Focusing on one area of expertise gives our specialists a clear view of what's happening in their field across the sector, insights you'll find in the 2024 Harris Hill Salary Survey, together with current rates for around 200 charity and not for profit sector positions.

You can view the full survey via the link above, but here's what the team had to say about the current market for charity professionals in marketing, communications, PR and digital roles.

Marketing, PR and digital market trends

It’s a case of spot-the-salary-increase this year in marketing (‘When is it ever not?’ wonder weary marketers), with many of this year’s figures looking suspiciously like last year’s copied and pasted into place. Largely because they are.

Salaries are ultimately driven by supply and demand, and marketers have simply never been scarce enough to command significant increases, not least because in contrast with fundraising, candidates from outside the sector are not just welcomed, but often actively sought, giving charity marketers a run for their limited money.

That’s particularly true of marketing and digital roles (where commercial experience is usually considered a plus, if not a must), although slightly less so in communications and PR roles, where charity sector contacts and know-how may be the higher priority.

A proliferation of applications

Making the market even more competitive this year has been the conclusion of many short term contracts, coupled with significant restructuring both within and outside the sector that has reduced marketing teams and left large numbers looking for the much smaller number of jobs available.

To quantify that, we’re typically receiving around six times as many applications per job as even just a couple of years ago.

With numbers like these, charities can afford to be choosy, and most favour waiting for someone with exactly the right experience over compromising on the job requirements or salary.

Well, this is awkward...

Things get particularly tricky when it comes to manager roles around the £38-42k mark, where candidates looking to step up from more junior positions find themselves competing with managers who already had, but are now having to go backwards to find work at all.

The latter’s broader experience will often swing the vote in their favour, although no-one should be overly surprised if their tenure lasts only until the first opportunity to return to their previous level comes up. The best hope for more junior candidates lies with relatively young hiring managers, who are often a little wary of managing someone more experienced than themselves.

Meanwhile the most challenging positions to fill tend to be very technical digital roles and those in paid marketing and search, where those with the necessary skills are almost exclusively outside the sector, earning far more than charities can offer and reluctant to give that up.

Extra points for braving the bus

As in fundraising, we’re seeing a gradual increase in the time on site required by employers, with many of those obliged to commute receiving some form of supplementary payment for doing so. For this reason, fully remote candidates are sometimes favoured, given the lower total cost.

And as elsewhere, the big trend is for rolling two or more roles into one, with employers expecting more for their money. However that’s a particularly bold ask in marketing, where that money has barely increased in a decade, even as living costs have recently soared, leaving marketers substantially worse off in real terms by the year.

For the marketing figures, as well as those in all other major charity departments, see the full 2024 Salary Survey here, while for help with recruiting or your job search in this field, please contact our marketing specialists: