Research highlights
Generative AI peaks in the middle of the org. 10.1% of junior postings, 17.7% of manager, 9.3% of director.
Positioning climbs from 29.3% at junior to 48.9% at manager and 53.7% at director, then goes flat.
Craft skills drop at manager. Design tools go from 16.2% at junior to 3.9%. Video goes from 12.5% at senior IC to 2.0%.
SEO is the declared function in 13 of 1,980 postings, 0.7%.
Director postings mention managing people four times as often as manager postings do.
What marketing jobs ask for
Every level pooled and weighted by how many postings it holds.
Positioning at 46.9% and cross-functional work at 44.7% are the only two requirements above 40%, and they are the two hardest to demonstrate on a CV. Everything a marketer can show evidence for sits below 25%.
Generative AI is 14.3% across the whole sample, behind CRM, events and storytelling.
Requirements by seniority
Share of postings at each level mentioning the requirement.
Scroll for all seven levels →
Sample sizes
| Level | Postings |
|---|---|
| Junior | Postings99 |
| IC | Postings442 |
| Senior IC | Postings88 |
| Manager | Postings640 |
| Lead | Postings374 |
| Director | Postings300 |
| VP | Postings35 |
The seven levels hold 1,978 of the 1,980 postings. The remaining two are CMO roles, too few to report.
"Runs events or webinars" counts any posting where organising events, webinars or conference presence forms part of the role. Dedicated events jobs are 3.0% of the sample.
Cross-functional work +27.1 points, positioning +24.4, demand generation +14.9, people management +11.3, storytelling +10.9.
Design tools -10.5 points, social media -9.2, events -5.5, CRM -4.5, copywriting -4.4.
Social media and copywriting are in the requirement dictionary but not in the table above.
The senior IC column breaks the pattern of the rest of the table. SQL appears in 28.4% of senior IC postings, against 8.9% at manager and 7.3% at director. Analytics platforms sit at 25.0%. Technical depth is concentrated in one column, which puts senior IC on a separate track from the management ladder.
Requirements by function
Top three requirements per function. The four smallest functions are left out.
| Function | Postings | 1st | 2nd | 3rd |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Product marketing | Postings225 | Positioning 95.6% | Cross-functional 59.6% | Storytelling 37.8% |
| Lifecycle / CRM | Postings40 | Email / lifecycle 97.5% | Marketing automation 87.5% | CRM 77.5% |
| Partner / Affiliate | Postings39 | Partner marketing 97.4% | Cross-functional 84.6% | Events 74.4% |
| Events / Field | Postings60 | Events 100% | Cross-functional 58.3% | Positioning 56.7% |
| Comms / PR | Postings115 | Media relations 67.0% | Storytelling 44.3% | Cross-functional 39.1% |
| Social / Community | Postings51 | Social media 66.7% | Community 52.9% | Storytelling 31.4% |
| Paid / Performance | Postings53 | Paid social 60.4% | Budget ownership 58.5% | Cross-functional 47.2% |
| Content / Editorial | Postings131 | Storytelling 41.2% | Content strategy 39.7% | Cross-functional 24.4% |
| Brand / Creative | Postings95 | Cross-functional 44.2% | Brand strategy 31.6% | Positioning 28.4% |
| General marketing | Postings725 | Positioning 53.4% | Cross-functional 43.4% | CRM 26.3% |
| Growth / Demand gen | Postings377 | Cross-functional 42.2% | Positioning 36.6% | Demand generation 23.1% |
Growth is the second largest category of marketing hiring at 19.0%, and its leading requirement is cross-functional work at 42.2%. No skill reaches half its postings. Lifecycle sits at 97.5% on email and partner marketing at 97.4%. Employers describe a lifecycle hire precisely and a growth hire loosely.
Budget ownership reaches 58.5% in paid and performance, against 20.2% across manager postings generally. Spending authority arrives with the function, not the level.
Events appear in 74.4% of partner marketing postings, second only to the events function itself.
Which marketing roles companies are hiring
Over a third of marketing titles declare no function at all. "Marketing Manager", "Marketing Lead" and "Head of Marketing" remain the common way these roles get named.
Generative AI by function
Content sits at 8.4% and brand at 7.4%. Paid, growth and product marketing lead.
The four smallest functions are left out of the chart. Three of them are worth noting and not quoting: SEO at 76.9% across 13 postings, marketing ops at 29.2% across 24, developer relations at 26.1% across 23.
Sources
- Public job boards, September 2026.
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