Marketing
The marketing industry is poised for significant shifts in 2025. Let’s take a look at some of the key trends set to impact the industry in the coming year.
Skills shortages
The marketing industry continues to experience extensive skills shortages across the board. Paired with heavy workloads and rising cases of burnout, retention continues to be an ongoing challenge for both employers and employees across the marketing space.
For many marketing professionals, the key factors driving turnover are an uncompetitive salary, a lack of promotional opportunities and the rising cost of living, forcing them to find better-paying positions elsewhere.
In terms of hard skills, data analytics and SEO remain a key gap, followed by strategic planning and an understanding of digital and privacy concepts. As for soft skills, management, negotiation, critical thinking and problem-solving skills are in high demand within the marketing field.
With these shortages in mind, employers are focussing their efforts on providing a number of benefits centred around additional training, ongoing learning and development and career progression opportunities in order to attract and retain skilled talent. That said, many businesses are working with limited training budgets, which is making upskilling existing employees challenging. But despite budgetary constraints, businesses are increasing minimum salaries for entry-level and junior roles to attract top talent in a competitive market.
The rise of data-driven marketing
Over the past few years, a number of industries have embraced the use of big data to drive decision-making and strategies, including the marketing sector. Data-driven marketing has revolutionised the marketing industry by enabling businesses to make informed decisions based on real-time data insights.
Marketing teams are using a data-driven approach to allow them to create hyper-personalised marketing campaigns, enhance customer segmentation and ultimately improve campaign effectiveness. Not only do these insights help teams to improve cost efficiency, but they also provide the basis for predictive analytics for future trends, allowing businesses to adapt quickly to changing customer demands.
As we approach 2025, many marketing teams are harnessing the needs, experiences and wants of their customers as a key source of data. Known as the Voice of Customer (VoC), when combined with data-driven marketing, these insights allow brands to align their strategies directly with customer expectations and preferences.
As brands and businesses take a more customer-centric approach, the VoC has become a key source of information to help drive strategies. By actively collecting and analysing customer feedback, preferences and expectations, marketing teams are adapting their offerings and communications to meet the demands of a competitive and diverse market. Paired with innovative technologies, like AI and machine learning, brands are able to quickly and effectively analyse VoC data and turn customer sentiments into actionable insights.
Hiring trends and market outlook
As the Australian job market continues to recover from the effects of the COVID pandemic, it’s hoped that the influx of skilled migrant workers will help ease skills shortages in the marketing industry.
As we approach the new year, many businesses want to increase their headcount by hiring more permanent and contract staff in 2025 and beyond. Employers are beginning to embrace evolving recruitment practices, with remote recruitment processes and interstate hiring increasing in recent times. Plus, as remote and hybrid roles become more commonplace, it opens up even more opportunities for businesses to attract skilled workers across a wider geographic space. Ultimately, businesses are seeking to futureproof their teams while embracing a flexible approach.
The future of marketing roles
Like many industries, technological innovations, AI, data and digital are driving transformation within the marketing sector. These changes are reshaping roles, skill sets and hiring priorities.
As organisations seek to optimise their headcount, they’re increasingly favouring generalist marketers who can manage multiple responsibilities efficiently, aligning with tighter budgets and streamlined teams. Generalists typically offer greater flexibility and adaptability across projects, making them valuable resources in dynamic, fast-paced environments.
That said, organisations have to balance generalist marketers with specialists that offer niche expertise. In particular, data analytics, SEO and marketing technology, or MarTech for short, remain in high demand as businesses seek expertise to address skill gaps in technical and strategic areas. These roles typically require deep knowledge across digital transformation, cookie deprecation and customer data strategies, which are crucial to helping businesses stay competitive.
As AI transforms marketing functions, professionals must adapt to new tools and methodologies, such as predictive analytics and automation. While automation handles repetitive tasks, human marketers will focus on creative and strategic contributions.
Ultimately, the future of marketing roles will hinge on adaptability, strategic thinking and a blend of specialised and generalist skillsets, enabling businesses to navigate digital transformation and economic challenges.
While marketing roles have previously focused on specialised skill sets and niche positions, the modern-day marketer needs to have a more commercial appeal. By upskilling across several different areas, they’ll be able to offer a more holistic approach to their marketing services.
Digital
In 2025, digital investment remains a priority despite budget constraints, with a strong focus on data-driven marketing.
Increasing investment in digital
When it comes to investment in digital over the next year, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. Although there was an increased focus on digital spending in 2024, a large proportion of digital teams are facing budgetary constraints. While some digital teams have noted their company expects them to do more with the same budget, other teams feel they’re required to improve their performance on a reduced budget.
That said, investment in digital remains a key priority despite budget constraints, with a growing focus on data-driven marketing.
High demand for digital marketing professionals
Thanks to the growth in the digital space, there continues to be a high demand for digital marketing professionals. As consumers continue to embrace online shopping, businesses across a range of industries are understanding the importance of digital engagement.
In terms of products and services offered by digital marketing agencies, search engine marketing (SEM) services generate the largest proportion of revenue for digital advertising agencies, followed by digital advertising content. As a result, these businesses are investing heavily in digital roles, like SEO specialists, social media managers and PPC (pay-per-click) professionals.
At the same time, these businesses are wanting to understand the impact of their efforts by garnering measurable results and data-driven insights. Performance marketing specialists, data analysts and conversion rate optimisation (CRO) experts are positioned to assess the effectiveness of these campaigns and provide actionable insights, drumming up demand for these roles.
That said, businesses are hesitant to completely break away from traditional marketing channels, so they’re constantly looking for professionals who can integrate digital strategies with traditional marketing approaches. The ability to create a consistent customer journey across multiple platforms, including email, social, mobile and in-store, is essential.
Demand for specialist skills in digital
As more customers move towards digital platforms, businesses are focusing more on creating seamless, engaging customer experiences, driving demand for customer experience (CX) professionals. These roles often bridge marketing, customer service and product development, requiring professionals to understand customer journeys and design effective engagement strategies.
Not to mention, with the expansion of the marketing technology space, professionals with knowledge of tools like HubSpot, Marketo and Salesforce are highly valued. Automation is quickly gaining traction among businesses within the marketing industry looking to streamline tasks and scale marketing efforts, so skilled automation specialists are in high demand.
With the rise of AI and machine learning, we’ve started seeing more demand for specific skills like data analysis, personalisation and predictive marketing. Some marketing efforts have even harnessed AI to create hyper-personalised campaigns, so having relevant knowledge and experience in this area can help give you an edge over other candidates.
The future of digital roles
As digital functions expand, the demand for strategic, commercial and data literacy skills will continue to gain traction in 2025. Digital roles now require a balance between technical expertise, including data analytics and SEO and strategic capabilities like planning and analytics. To stay competitive, organisations must prioritise learning and development initiatives to address these skill gaps effectively.
Communications
For many organisations, communications play a key role in their success. With this in mind, we expect to see continuing growth in this sector in 2025.
The importance of communications roles
Internal communications are essential for keeping employees motivated and engaged, which ultimately leads to better retention. On the flip side, effective customer communication is key to building trust and safeguarding the business’s reputation. Consequently, we’re seeing continued demand for corporate communications roles.
The rise of corporate social responsibility
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives increasingly focus on environmental sustainability, diversity and inclusion, community engagement and ethical practices. Heightened consumer attention to these areas is driving businesses to prioritise CSR in their communications strategies. Looking ahead, the importance of CSR is expected to grow, reflecting evolving societal expectations and changing consumer demands.
Content and communications roles are evolving
With so many businesses operating within the digital space, it’s becoming increasingly important for brands to establish a clear point of difference. As such, these businesses are looking to set themselves apart from their competitors by forming deeper relationships with their customers through storytelling, thought leadership and personalised content. As a result, demand for marketing professionals skilled in content strategy, copywriting and content management systems (CMS) continues to grow.
With hybrid and remote working options becoming increasingly popular within workplaces, many internal communications roles have also expanded in scope. Companies are investing in professionals who can improve employee engagement, manage change communication and foster a strong organisational culture. Employee retention and mental well-being initiatives also drive this demand.
As these roles continue to evolve, employers within the digital and marketing space are prioritising training and ongoing learning and development to help their teams keep up with the changing demands of their roles.
Salary adjustments to communications roles
Narrowing salary ranges, particularly at the higher end, reflects a shift toward sustainable compensation strategies across communications. At the same time, rising minimum salaries highlight efforts to attract top talent and remain competitive in a skills-driven market. We’re also seeing the increasing use of flexible workforce solutions, including higher contract rates, which addresses the need for adaptability in meeting dynamic, project-based demands.
Ultimately, offering competitive and appealing salary packages is essential for attracting top communications talent in a compensation-sensitive market.
Are you looking for skilled talent or a challenging new role? Ampersand’s team of recruitment specialists are experts in matching the right person with the right role across marketing, digital and communications. Get in touch to learn more about how we can help you with your recruitment needs.
