What to expect from marketing recruitment in 2026 

Is the worst over for marketers after a horrible few years for recruitment? Headhunters certainly think so, however, it’s a mixed picture.  

After what headhunter Suzie Walker describes as the most challenging job market in three decades, the tide may finally be turning at the senior end for directors and CMOs. Alas the recovery isn’t equal across the career ladder.  

Walker’s company, Suzie Walker Executive Search, recorded a 438% increase in new senior marketing registrations between the first half of 2024 and the first half of 2025, meaning a significant increase in those signing up to find job opportunities, reflecting the high number of marketers who’ve found themselves out of work.  ‘It’s exploded’: Why brands are hiring more performance creatives

Roles that previously attracted around 300 candidates now regularly receive over 2,000 applications, she says, with approximately 70% of current applicants either unemployed or working fractionally.  

Yet Walker is now seeing some indicators of recovery: “Not only are we seeing a slowdown in new registrations, but we’re also seeing an upturn in people accepting new roles.”  

Joel Barnett, CEO of Fortune Hill, notes that despite the negative headlines around marketing recruitment, 2025 was a “record year” for his senior recruitment business. “There is recruitment activity happening at a senior level,” he says, but the merry-go-round of people leaving roles and creating opportunities isn’t quite spinning yet.  

While the macroeconomic environment is unpredictable to say the least, here’s what marketers can expect from the recruitment landscape in 2026.  

The recruitment storm moves down

A quarter (23.8%) of marketers responding to Marketing Week’s Career & Salary Survey said their businesses had cut senior marketing leaders from teams and not replaced them last year.  

Senior marketers were among the worst affected by cuts. Team restructures hit a three-year high this year, and many businesses removed their most expensive marketers to save on costs.  

The worst is over at the senior end of the market.

Suzie Walker

But is it about to get worse for mid-level marketers? “My prediction for 2026 is we are now going to see a wave of redundancies at that level,” says Walker.  

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

“The worst is over at the senior end of the market,” says Walker, as brands recognise the need for marketing as a growth engine for the business. But with overheads and pressures, she expects the burden will move down the food chain.  

However, overall, she believes teams have weathered the storm already. “I think most of those cuts have happened now,” she says.  

Performance and brand inflection point?

While “the level of uncertainty is off the chart”, says Barnett, patterns are emerging in the type of marketing jobs that businesses are hiring for.  

Performance marketing positions are experiencing particularly strong demand and increasing at the senior end of the spectrum. “There’s definitely a continued desire and need for people with senior performance marketing roles,” Walker notes, from a mix of private equity and listed companies. 

What sits behind this demand is that they are very much viewed as “the engine” to customer acquisition.  

What’s changed is the seniority of these appointments. A year ago, senior hires in this area would’ve been at the ‘head of’ level, says Walker. “The interesting thing over the last 12 or 18 months is these are now director-level executive leadership roles. The demand has gone up a level in terms of calibre, number of years expertise and, frankly, gravitas.”Over half of brands facing performance marketing skills gap

It’s been a difficult time for brand marketers. While some businesses have continued to invest, many have leant on short-term tactics for customer acquisition and growth. 

However, at Fortune Hill, there’s been a “very large number of brand roles this year”, says Barnett. These have been at the VP of brand level for “significant international businesses”.  

The increase in brand-related roles is thanks to the “reality that brand matters”, he says. “There’s a reason why the world’s biggest businesses continue to invest significant amounts of time, capital and energy into their brands.”  

Walker has also seen what are regarded as “the traditional brand director roles” increase in the last few months, after few throughout the year, driven “by the fact that companies really are starting to rethink the value of brand”. 

“It got lost in the mix over the last few years,” she notes.  

She’s also noticed a change to how brand roles are labelled. “Interestingly, the titles are not brand director,” Walker explains. “The titles will be a variation of marketing director, global marketing director, senior marketing director,” she says, adding the majority of the role will be brand-focused, but with oversight of performance marketing.  

The interim ‘over-hire’ 

“We will see a continued increase of what I call the interim over-hire,” says Walker. The ‘over-hire’ is where a company brings in an “incredibly experienced interim” while going through a period of transformation.  

There are many benefits to this: from engaging someone with proven transformation skills to intentionally hiring someone over-qualified for a rapid impact and structured approach. ‘You have to kiss a lot of frogs’: The dos and don’ts of setting up as a fractional CMO

“All of our really talented senior interim candidates have a certain formula or process they follow when they start the role,” Walker explains. “In those first 30, 60, 90 days, they have a strategic approach to how they deliver in the interim, which means they’re incredibly effective.”  

The model typically sees the interim drive transformation over six to 12 months, then help recruit their permanent replacement, often at a slightly more junior level, before moving on. Walker emphasises these are strategic hires, not stop gaps.  

“You will always see interim roles increase in times of economic instability. It’s perceived as less risky,” she notes.  

AI in the briefs  

As AI becomes less of a hype and more of a standard way of doing things, businesses want to hire marketers with a level of AI literacy.  

“The one common thing that we’re seeing in all of the briefs now at any level is AI,” says Walker. “The leader coming in needs to have a really good, broad understanding of AI capabilities and the opportunities it presents.”  

It’s not about using AI themselves but about leading the teams that will. The Marketing Week Podcast: Is AI making recruitment worse for candidates?

Similarly, Barnett warns against businesses focusing on technical credentials for their senior hires at the expense of leadership capability.  

There are “tech geniuses” who could talk to you about how AI is impacting marketing automation at scale in a way that will “blow your mind”, he says, but “who don’t fundamentally understand their business and so would not make a good CMO”. 

Instead, he suggests businesses hire based on these questions: “How good a leader is this person? How much do they understand the commercial realities of business? How agile are they? Can they move fast? Can they learn?” 

Mandate to hire 

Many businesses view hiring in the current climate as a risk, and while there are more opportunities available now and going into the new year, the quality of processes isn’t rising, says Rowan Fisk, founder of recruitment company GrowthKind.  

“There’s a lot of businesses that are dragging their heels, that are scared to make a decision about appointing a search firm or going to market, let alone make a decision about hiring somebody,” he says. 

Much of this is due to the high level of candidates on the market and brands thinking they can always find a better person than the one in front of them. However, as recruitment is picking up, this should ease in the new year, he suggests.  

There’s more growth and hiring in smaller businesses and startups, he adds, with these companies coming to market first. “You see the startups, then you see the scale ups, then you see the corporates get back into the market,” he adds.  

Fisk has seen more private equity activity and hiring recently, as has Barnett. 

“We’ve seen quite a lot of private equity activity, driven more by companies upgrading or refreshing capability in their portfolio companies,” he says. “Most private equity funds are predicting that they will deploy funds in 2026,” which will provide more opportunities for movement and momentum.  

As part of The Year Ahead, Marketing Week will be identifying the key opportunities and challenges that will shape marketers’ roles in 2026. As well as flagging what we think marketers should be spending time and money on next year, it is also a commitment from us to focus on these topics.