How to fly when salaries are diving

What are you worth? Let me tell you. If you’re a man in the top 10 per cent of marketing earners, you may be taking home an average of £96,997. But if you are female, you can expect around £10,000 less for doing the same job.

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Meanwhile, if you are an average-earning marketing director, £75,345 will be waiting in your pay packet. A nice salary, of course, but down from the £82,000 average in 2007. Marketing managers see much the same trend with average salaries falling from £42,950 in 2007 to £36,767.

So how can you ensure you’re one of the top marketing earners? I’ve got some advice based on our Marketing Week/Ball & Hoolahan Salary Survey 2013, which is the largest and most wide-reaching in the marketing industry.

1. Be a specialist. This year’s results suggest that people with specialist skills that are not easy to replicate are less likely to have had their pay frozen than other marketers. So while general marketing assistants and those in communication roles are considered most likely to not receive a pay rise, those with specialisms, particularly within digital marketing, remain in demand.

2. Think male. The Salary Survey suggests a confidence in their own worth among men that is not present among enough women. Men are anticipating an average rise of 4.3 per cent this year, compared to women, who expect 3.1 per cent.

3. Flexibility is the future. Wages are important but great employee benefits can make employees feel their rewards are far greater than their peers’ and keep them loyal. This is a trend that employers must take notice of in 2013.

Amazingly for an age where most in marketing have a laptop, tablet and smartphone, flexible working is still none too advanced in many firms. Nearly 75 per cent of marketers say flexible working is either important or very important to them but just 62 per cent of companies have adopted flexible working.

4. Be proactive. Only 54 per cent of respondents have a marketing-related qualification yet 60 per cent of these say they believe it has increased their earning potential. So to put yourself into a higher paid position, show your worth with a qualification, extra training or something that sets you apart from the pack.

5. Take control. If you want to know where the well-paid jobs of the future will lie, use our new Salary Survey calculator tool to see where you rank against other marketers with your age, job title, gender and sector. (Then you can work out how to ask your boss for that pay rise.)

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