Pay for IT-focussed digital staff climbs 70%

A slowdown in the number of people joining Facebook shouldn’t be seen as a sign that social media is losing ground in the pay stakes, particularly not for its technically-able practitioners.

In fact, pay packets for senior digital and social media technologists have fattened up by almost 70 per cent since 2009, according to business and IT staffing agents at ReThink Recruitment.

Pointing to their database, the recruiters said ‘Head of Search’ jobs, often requiring SEO and PPC skills, now command a base salary of £75,000, up from around £45,000 three years ago.

The AIM-listed recruiter explained: “As businesses put ever bigger budgets into their online marketing efforts, this role has gone from being relatively junior to high status – in some web and digital media companies this is a director’s job.”

Head of executive recruitment, Mark Geraghty, said that while there are “quite a few” candidates on the market with experience of SEO or PPC, the number of individuals with five years’ experience, or longer, is significantly less.

However it is not just the more established SEO/PPC consultants who are better off, as “every level” of the digital and social jobs ladders have been on a positive pay trajectory ever since 2009.

“Web-based companies and corporates are having to compete for the talent with the digital marketing agencies – who want to hire those individuals out as consultants,” Mr Geraghty reflected.

“That is all driving up their price. But when you consider the amount they can earn in consultancy fees - and the budgets that they are now dealing with, the increase in basic pay over the last few years is not unreasonable.”

Organisations in the financial services sector are the latest end-users to exert upward pay pressure on social or digital expertise mainly, Rethink said, because they want to cut costs by generating more of their sales online.

Retail, particularly fashion retailers, is the other major sector ramping up demand for pay per click and eCommerce specialists, thanks to leading brands jostling to potentially make bigger investments in social media campaigns in order to drive traffic their way.