A third of marketers not offered upskilling opportunities

A third of marketers (33.5%) are not being offered opportunities to enhance their skills at work, Marketing Week’s 2023 Career and Salary Survey can reveal.

The problem is more pronounced in B2C (32.9%) than B2B (30.1%), with the biggest gap identified among marketers working in companies that span both B2B and B2C (38%).

The majority of companies are upskilling their marketers, though, with 58% of the 3,000-plus marketers taking part in this year’s survey saying they’re being offered the opportunity to boost their skills and knowledge by their employers.

This rises slightly to 61% for B2B marketers, but drops to 54.4% for marketers working at brands with a mix of B2B and B2C. For marketers working in B2C the figure is 58.2%.

SMEs are providing more upskilling opportunities than large organisations, with 60% of smaller businesses giving their marketers space to enhance their skills, compared with 54.3% of their larger counterparts.

How brands are bridging skills gaps

However, while the majority are offered opportunities to enhance their skills, a third (33.5%) say they have no access to training of this kind.

Most marketers are confident they already have the skills businesses are looking for, though, with the vast majority (91.1%) saying they have the right combination of skills for their business.

For male identifying respondents, 93.8% feel they have the right combination of skills, compared with 89.8% of female respondents.

Gen Z (those aged 26 and under) are the most confident generation, with 92.8% believing they have the right set of skills. For Gen Y (27- to 42-year-olds) , that number is 91.1%, and for Gen X (those aged 43 to 58) it’s 90.6%.

Split by company type, 92.4% of B2B marketers feel they have the right skills, as do 90.4% of B2C marketers and 90.2% of marketers with a mix of B2B and B2C.

Data analysis is the biggest skills gap for marketing teamsFor SME marketers, 91.3% say they feel they have the skills for the job, alongside 90.8% of marketers at large organisations.

For those who don’t feel they have the right skill set (8.9%), a lack of digital and ecommerce skills is the biggest barrier (23.9%).

This is followed by general marketing skills (16.8%), a lack of time and resources to develop (15.9%) and a lack of confidence and experience in marketing skills (14.1%).

A tenth (10.6%) of these marketers say their current role isn’t the direction they want their career to go, while 9.7% say it’s down to a lack of training, and 6.2% say their current role is not suited to their skillset.

Just 4.4% say the reason for feeling they don’t have the right skills is because they have a niche or industry specific skillset already, while 2.7% say they lack social media skills, and 0.9% say it’s because of a lack of content creation skills.

As part of our Anatomy of a Marketer series, which is based on data from the Marketing Week Career and Salary Survey, we take a closer look at the marketing skills that are needed, necessary and fundamental to success in the current and future environment, as well as those that aren’t.

Check out all the latest 2023 Career and Salary Survey content