Overwhelmingly white, middle class and male: 5 killer stats from Salary Survey 2020

Marketing is overwhelming middle class…

Some 82% of the 3,883 marketers responding to the Marketing Week Career and Salary Survey 2020 define themselves as coming from either an upper middle, middle or lower middle class background.

That is compared to just 17% who identify themselves as coming from a working class background and 1% from a non-working background.

…and overwhelming white

The 2020 Career and Salary Survey reveals a stark lack of ethnic diversity in marketing.

As many as 88% of marketers taking part in the survey identify as being white. Coming in far behind are marketers identifying as Asian (5%), mixed race (4%) and black (2%).

Source: Marketing Week 2020 Career and Salary Survey 

Women are failing to break through into marketing’s senior echelons at the same rate as men

Despite women making up 61% of marketers responding to the 2020 Career and Salary Survey, their presence lessens dramatically the more senior roles become.

Among female marketers, 30.2% of the roles they hold are senior (defined as senior manager to partner/owner). For men, 49.5% of the roles they hold are at a senior level or above.

Marketers from upper middle class backgrounds are the most likely to hold a senior role

While only 10% of respondents to the 2020 Career and Salary Survey identify as having come from an upper middle class background, these marketers are far more likely to hold senior positions.

READ MORE: Salary Survey 2020 – Marketing’s diversity crisis impacts seniority and influence

Some 52.6% of marketers from an upper middle class background are in a senior role, compared to just the 30.4% of marketers from a working class background who are in a senior role.

Marketing has an undeniable London-centric bias

A staggering 52.1% of the 2,227 UK-based marketers taking part in the 2020 Career and Salary Survey are based in London and the South East, demonstrating a clear bias towards job opportunities in the capital.

The next most popular region for marketing roles is the Midlands (9.5%), followed by the North West (8.2%), the South West (6.8%), the North East (4.5%) and the East (3.8%).

According to the survey, just 3.6% of marketing roles are located in Scotland, 1.6% in Wales and 0.7% in Northern Ireland.

Some 8.9% of respondents answered the question as ‘not applicable’ as they were not based in the UK

Source: Marketing Week Career and Salary Survey 2020. Click here to read more analysis.