‘More opportunities’: Where’s the job market headed for mid-level marketers?

To land a job in marketing today isn’t easy. The hiring landscape has been rocky to say the least for the last few years and marketers across the board have been struggling to gain employment or move jobs.  

Employment prospects for marketers hit a four-year low in April 2025, according to IPA Bellwether data shared exclusively with Marketing Week. The most recent outlook, published this month, showed hiring intention had again dipped.  

More than a quarter (28.8%) of marketing leaders expect to make cuts to their teams in the first three months of 2026, up from 22.8% in the previous quarter. 

However, the percentage of leaders expecting to add to their teams is also up. Going into the new year, 20.9% expect to add headcount to their teams, compared with 17.5% last quarter.   

So, there are opportunities among the chaos. But where are the openings for mid-level marketers? Here is a snapshot of the market, which Marketing Week will be digging into more in the coming weeks. 

Challenges remain

The outlook for mid-level marketers in 2026 “remains challenging”, suggests Charlie Rawstron, co-founder of recruitment company 3Search. 

“We’re still seeing teams being streamlined and restructured as businesses factor AI and technology into how work gets done, while continuing to look for efficiencies across their cost base,” he explains.  

This is resulting in team structures changing.

“[Teams are evolving] from traditional pyramid-shaped teams towards much flatter, more rectangular structures, which inevitably reduces the number of mid-level roles available,” says Rawstron.  

The most resilient candidates will be those who actively broaden their skillsets, embrace new channels and position themselves as leaders in AI.

Charlie Rawstron, 3Search.

Associate director for marketing and digital at recruiter Major Players, Jodie Clayton, agrees. While the majority of marketing structures used to have a marketing executive reporting into a marketing manager, who reports into a head of marketing, who then reports into a marketing director and then a CMO – teams are now hiring functional experts.  

There’s now a “real split” in teams across brand, performance and digital, which may be widening silos.  

Bringing in senior people to lead on “quite specific strategies” across marketing is “eradicating” the junior market in particular, but also causing concern at mid-level.  

Pockets of growth

There are “clear pockets of growth” for marketers at the mid-stage, suggests Rawstron.  

“Areas that accelerated towards the end of 2025 and look set to continue in 2026 include creative strategists within performance teams, social media specialists, particularly those operating in the creator and influencer space, and marketers with hands-on experience across Amazon Marketplace and TikTok Shop,” he says. 

“[In a market that remains difficult] the most resilient candidates will be those who actively broaden their skillsets, embrace new channels and position themselves as leaders in AI and emerging technology to become truly indispensable to their organisations.”  

The market was buoyant last year for marketers with tactical and performance-related experience. 

Areas like performance, CRM and data were seeing a lot of movement, says Clayton, while other functions were quiet.  

We’re feeling a lot more confident this year about the market in general, which is a big plus.

Niall Phelan, Sphere Digital Recruitment

Brands went big on heads of growth and performance marketing last year and are now looking to hire mid-level managers to execute and deliver on the strategies being set within businesses.  

Last year, recruiters spoke to Marketing Week about how few brand marketing-focused roles were on their books. Now, it seems brands are back to hiring in these functions.  

“We’re starting to see that businesses and agencies want to build out more of their in-house branding, content and production capability,” says Clayton.

In some cases, it’s going hand in hand with the increased investment in performance channels.

“It’s like, how do you maximise your return on ad spend through these channels? And it’s going to be through really good content and really good video,” she says.  

Social media marketing roles are “scaling very quickly”, Clayton adds, as brands shift investment into social at a greater scale.  

It’s a sweetspot for mid-level marketers, she suggests. A few years ago, a brand may have a social media manager who was solely responsible for scheduling posts. Now, brands want managers who can execute, but also be highly creative, “a lot more rounded in their experience” and an expert in the space.  

In terms of sectors, fashion, beauty and wellness are hot right now for social and content roles, Clayton suggests.

Changing responsibility

Many marketers at different stages of their careers are looking for work.

UpTalent, a recruitment company for startup marketers, currently has around 30,000 marketers signed up to its service in search of a job in marketing, says head of UpTalent Laura Roman. In January 2025, that figure stood at 16,000.  

While this reflects the number of marketers who are out of work and looking to get back into employment, it also highlights the opportunity for movement. If more marketers leave roles and find new opportunities it opens up more jobs, and the recruitment carousel starts spinning. 

Indeed, many recruiters tell Marketing Week they’ve seen fewer marketers out of role in the last few months.

The “huge amount of applications per job has decreased”, says Niall Phelan, co-founder of Sphere Digital Recruitment.

“We’re feeling a lot more confident this year about the market in general, which is a big plus,” he says.

More brand marketing roles are starting to feed through, Phelan notes, which is good news for many brand marketers struggling for opportunities.

What to expect from marketing recruitment in 2026 

The last few years saw many senior marketer roles cut from businesses.  

While headhunter Suzie Walker believes “the worst is over at the senior end of the market”, she predicts a wave of redundancies at the mid-level in 2026.  

This is because the cuts will follow the pattern of hitting the top first before cascading down. Plus, new leaders often bring a level of change to team structures.

Within startups, Roman believes cuts are incoming for mid-level marketers hired unrealistically by brands. For the last year or two, brands hired mid-level people when budgets were low with inflated job titles “expecting the delivery of a senior person”.  

Now, they’re realising they need people who can strategise and execute. Roman is starting to see an uplift in head of marketing job titles at startups – often for a team of below three people – who can strategise and execute rather than hiring two separate people.  

“The cycle I’ve seen is brands trying to get junior people to do more senior roles and pay them mid-level salaries, not seeing the results, then redundancies and then investing in more senior roles,” she explains.  

While a head of marketing in a larger business would be expected to do little execution, “in the startup space, a head of marketing can no longer sit in the strategic chair and not get their hands dirty”, Roman notes. She explains this is because many smaller businesses can’t afford multiple marketers in the current climate.  

However, there are “more opportunities” than there were six months ago, argues Clayton.

“For those in jobs, there’s still some hesitancy around changing jobs unless it’s absolutely the right job,” she notes.

Marketers in want of a more predictable job market may still be left wanting this year. That said, “it’s more stable” now than it has been in the last few years, Clayton concludes.

Click here for more marketing recruitment stories from Marketing Week.