Average salaries of digital specialists

The table below shows the average salaries of those respondents who classified themselves as digital specialists.

Though the individual sample sizes differ between each job role (see the breakdown here), it’s striking to see that average salary has decreased for content marketers (-4%), content producers (-15%) and copywriters (-28%) between 2015 and 2016.

This may reflect an increase in digital expertise amongst general marketers, leading to less of a skills shortage in this area.

Indeed, 44% of general marketer respondents admitted they had completed a digital training course of some sort.

Average salaries from selected job roles

Average salaries of men and women

Both sexes have suffered a pay decrease from 2015 to 2016 and a gender pay gap persists.

Among digital specialists, men earn £8,202 more than women on average, a pay gap of 17.7%. Meanwhile in general marketing, men are being paid an average salary of £8,273 more than women, a difference of 18.1%.

Update 23 August 2016:

In the user comments added below this article, some people asked what this gender pay gap looks like when job seniority is taken into account.

Below are the average salaries for men and women, split out by job title. Though the survey did ask about years of experience, in this instance we are using job title as indicative of seniority.

The gender with the lower average salary for each job role is highlighted in orange.

It’s perhaps interesting to note that the average salaries for marketing execs and marketing managers (by far the two largest sample sizes) are very similar for men and women.

gender pay divide

Digital specialists and general marketers earn the same salary in-house

Lastly, it’s interesting to note that although freelance digital specialists and those in agencies earn more than their general marketer counterparts, this distinction is not seen in-house.

The average basic salary for in-house roles is £40,591 for digital specialists, with general marketers taking home £40,334. 

Download the Econsultancy Career and Salary Survey 2016 to see the full findings.