Marketing recruitment this quarter is defined by a widening split: performance-driven, commercially accountable roles are in short supply, while traditional content and social roles have gone quiet. The reason isn't budget - it's automation, and it's already reshaping how hiring managers need to approach the market.
The Skills Split Is an AI Story, Not a Demand Story
Performance marketing, growth marketing and demand generation, and CRM marketing are the three hardest roles to fill right now. What unites them is measurability: clients want marketers who can demonstrate commercial impact directly, not just execute activity. Sector-specific fluency matters too - a candidate who understands the buying cycle in medical devices, insurance, or SaaS is worth considerably more than a generalist, because that context shortens the runway to results.
By contrast, copywriter, social media executives, and offline/traditional marketing executive roles have cooled noticeably. This isn't a budget shift away from content - it's generative AI absorbing the more templated end of content production. Basic copywriting and routine social media execution are exactly the tasks AI tools now handle competently, which means the market for candidates who only do that has shrunk. This reflects a corporate scaling and integration phase for AI in marketing functions, not a speculative trend: teams that experimented with AI content tools over the past year are now routing that work through automation by default and hiring around it, rather than instead of it. Practically, this means candidates who can pair content skill with AI-tool fluency and performance measurement are far more employable than those relying on production alone - and job specs that don't reflect that split risk attracting the wrong applicant pool entirely.
Salaries Are Moving, But Slowly
Every marketing candidate placed this quarter secured a salary increase on their previous package, and clients have generally been willing to negotiate to secure the right hire rather than lose them over a gap of a few thousand euro. That said, "increasing" doesn't mean loose - the growth is gradual, not a bidding war. What's changed more is candidate behaviour: marketing professionals are negotiating harder, and not just on base pay. Progression prospects and the overall package are now scrutinised as closely as the headline salary, meaning candidates are increasingly declining moves that look lateral rather than genuinely upward. For hiring managers, this means a competitive offer today has to answer the "what does this role lead to" question as clearly as the "what does this role pay" question - a compressed base-salary gap is easily lost if the growth story isn't credible.
Hybrid Is Non-Negotiable, and Poor Targeting Is Costing Real Money
In marketing and communications specifically, hybrid working has become close to mandatory, with most candidates seeking two days in the office and three working from home. This has not proven to be a sticking point for most clients - several have settled on an anchor-day model with flexibility around it, and two fully remote marketing roles are live right now. Commute length matters too: proximity between home and office is now a real factor in whether a candidate will engage with a role at all.
The clearest evidence of a shifting market came from two client conversations this quarter. One ran two direct hiring campaigns and made no successful hire from either. The other ran paid LinkedIn advertising, generated over 100 applications, found the large majority irrelevant to the role, and pulled the ad - a real cost with no return. Both point to the same underlying issue: volume is no longer a proxy for quality. Broad-reach campaigns are attracting applicants who don't match the role, while the specific, commercially-fluent marketers clients actually need aren't being reached by generic advertising.
The Takeaway
The marketing hiring market has become a precision problem, not a volume problem - the wrong campaign will cost you time, budget, and still leave the role unfilled. Get in touch with our team for custom benchmarking and a sourcing strategy built around the roles actually proving hard to fill.
