We’ve compiled the questions that are most likely to come up when you share this briefing with your team, your board, or your clients. If we’ve missed one, the source index at the end has everything you need to dig deeper.

Isn’t this just a normal economic cycle? Won’t it bounce back?

No. That’s the critical distinction this time. Previous marketing downturns — the 2008 recession, the post-Covid reshuffling — were cyclical. Jobs contracted, then expanded again as confidence returned. What the data shows now is structural change. AI is permanently reducing the number of people needed to do marketing work. Forrester has upgraded its forecast from 8% agency job losses by 2030 to 15% by the end of 2026. When someone leaves a marketing team and the role isn’t replaced, that’s not a hiring freeze. That’s a role that no longer exists. Mark Ritson’s analysis in The Drum puts it plainly: The Great Stay is not a blip. It’s a new normal.

Is the skills shortage a UK-specific problem?

No. It’s global, though the data in this briefing focuses on the UK and US because that’s where the most robust longitudinal research exists. The WFA/MediaSense study found that 77% of respondents globally reported talent scarcity, peaking at 81% in the US and 93% in APAC. ManpowerGroup’s annual survey found that 74% of employers worldwide struggle to find the talent they need. In the US specifically, the Taligence 2025 Marketing Jobs Report found job postings fell 8% year-on-year, and the average marketing salary actually fell by 3%. This is not a regional issue — it’s an industry-wide one.

If there’s a skills shortage, why are so many marketers out of work?

Good question, and it gets to the heart of the paradox. The shortage isn’t in the number of people who call themselves marketers — it’s in the specific skills employers need. There’s no shortage of social media managers. What’s scarce is people who can do data analytics, performance marketing, marketing effectiveness measurement, and AI implementation. The market is simultaneously oversupplied with generalists and undersupplied with specialists. Add in the K-shaped dynamic — senior roles holding up while mid-level and junior roles disappear — and you get a situation where experienced marketers can’t find roles that match their level, and businesses can’t find people with the skills they actually need.

Why aren’t companies just training their existing people?

That’s the £319 billion question. Marketing Week’s 2024 survey found that 48.8% of marketers hadn’t been offered any upskilling opportunity. Only 11.2% of businesses had conducted a skills audit. The reasons are a cocktail of short-termism, budget pressure, and a ‘more with less’ culture that leaves no time or money for development. When 54.9% of your workforce is absorbing more responsibility without more pay, training becomes the thing that gets pushed to next quarter — every quarter.

Is AI really eliminating marketing jobs, or is that overhyped?

Both things are partially true, which makes this hard to navigate. The headline predictions — ‘AI will replace all marketers’ — are overhyped. But the gradual, quiet contraction is very real. HubSpot reports 74% of marketing professionals already use AI daily. A Federal Reserve Bank of New York survey found 12% of service firms had already reduced hiring because of AI. The impact is K-shaped: junior and mid-level roles are being absorbed, while senior strategic roles remain (for now). As Ritson wrote in The Drum, this is not a sudden explosion — it’s a year-on-year constriction that’s quieter and more corrosive than most realise until they try to find a new job.

What’s ageism got to do with a skills shortage?

Everything. The industry is losing its most experienced practitioners at exactly the moment it needs their capabilities most. 79% of UK marketers are under 45. Just 6.2% of the advertising workforce is over 50 — despite that age group making up 32% of the UK working population. Senior marketers are being made redundant, not replaced, and squeezed out through restructuring and a cultural obsession with ‘digital native’ credentials. Meanwhile, the skills the industry says it’s desperate for — strategic thinking, effectiveness, judgement, leadership — are exactly the ones that take decades of experience to develop. Pushing out the over-45s while complaining about a lack of strategic capability is, at best, contradictory. At worst, it’s the cause of the problem.

What should a CMO or CEO actually do with this information?

Four things, immediately. First, audit your team’s skills honestly — only 11.2% of businesses have done this, which means if you do it you’re already ahead of 89% of your competitors. Second, invest in training. Not a ‘lunch and learn’ — structured, funded development in the areas that matter: data, effectiveness, AI literacy. Third, protect your experienced people. The person in their late 40s who understands brand strategy, can read a P&L, and can push back on a bad brief is harder to replace than you think — and the data shows they’re being pushed out across the industry. Fourth, stop expecting the market to provide what you need. The talent isn’t coming. You have to build it.

Where can I read more?

Every statistic in this briefing is sourced from publicly available trade press and industry research. The full source index is on the next page. The two single best starting points are Marketing Week’s Career & Salary Survey series (published annually, with the 2025 edition providing the most current data) and Mark Ritson’s February 2026 column in The Drum on The Great Stay. Between them, they cover the skills gap, the job market collapse, AI’s impact, and the structural outlook for the profession. Both are behind paywalls, but both are worth paying for.