Marketing Salaries in Birmingham 2026: What Should You Pay?
There’s a lot of talk about how difficult it is to hire good marketers right now.
On an almost daily basis, we’re hearing:
“Why is nobody applying”
“Why did our best candidate accept another offer?”
And the classic… “We’ve got a £25k budget, but we need someone with five years’ experience, and they need to be strategic, commercially minded, great with content, confident with data, and able to manage multiple agencies. Oh, and they need to hit the ground running.”
We’re sorry to break it to you, but sometimes the problem isn’t the talent pool.
It’s the salary.
And if you’re hiring marketing talent in Birmingham in 2026, knowing what the market actually looks like could be the difference between attracting the right person and watching your job advert sit on LinkedIn for an endless number of weeks.
So, what are marketing salaries in Birmingham looking like in 2026?
Truthfully, there isn’t one magic number. And anyone who tells you there is is probably trying to sell you a salary guide.
Marketing is a broad industry.
A Marketing Executive creating social media content for a small business isn’t doing the same job as a Digital Marketing Executive managing paid campaigns, SEO, and analytics. And a Marketing Manager responsible for strategy, budgets, agencies and a team certainly shouldn’t be benchmarked against either.
That’s why salary needs to reflect more than a job title.
Naturally, salaries vary, but experience, specialism, responsibility, sector, company size, and the level of autonomy expected all make a difference.
But, in saying all that, there are some useful benchmarks.
Marketing Executive salaries in Birmingham
If you’re hiring a Marketing Executive, you might be thinking somewhere around the high £20k to mid £30k range. And depending on the role, that can be realistic. But ask yourself what you’re actually asking the person to do.
Are they supporting campaigns? Creating content? Managing social media? Updating the website? Writing emails? Reporting on performance? Running paid campaigns? Managing agencies? Developing the strategy?
Because there’s a fairly big difference between “You’ll be supporting the Marketing Manager” and “You’ll be managing the marketing department.”
We’ve seen plenty of job descriptions where the second one is being paid like the first. That’s where employers get caught out.
Digital marketing salaries in Birmingham
Digital marketing is another one where salary can vary massively. And that’s because “digital marketing” can mean 564 different things.
SEO. PPC. Paid social. Email. CRM. E-commerce. Analytics. Marketing automation. Content. And increasingly AI.
A candidate who can own a specialist channel and demonstrate genuine commercial results is going to be valued differently to someone who has simply had exposure to it.
For example, current Birmingham Digital Marketer roles are being advertised around the £28k to £30k mark, while another Paid Media Specialist role is currently offering up to £48k, depending on experience.
If you’re struggling to attract digital marketing talent, it might be worth asking whether your salary reflects the specialist skills you’re asking for. The more niche the skillset, the smaller the talent pool. And the smaller the talent pool, the more competitive your offer needs to be.
What should you pay a Marketing Manager in Birmingham?
This is where things get really interesting, because the term Marketing Manager can mean very different things from one company to another.
In one firm, a Marketing Manager might support the Marketing Director, whilst managing a small team and overseeing campaigns. In another, they might be responsible for the entire marketing strategy, budget management, agency relationships, CRM, lead generation, board-level performance, and everything in between.
Same job title.
Very different job.
Current Birmingham vacancies show Marketing Manager roles around £35k – £40k, while more experienced roles are reaching £65k. So, before deciding your salary, look at the scope of the role. If you’re asking someone to think strategically, lead people and deliver commercially, you need to pay accordingly.
Then there’s the “competitive salary” problem…
We love seeing “competitive salary” in job adverts. 🙄
Competitive against what? The job next door? The Birmingham market? Last year’s salary? Your competitor?
Candidates have access to more salary information than ever. They’re comparing, and they’re not just comparing salaries. They’re also looking at benefits, flexibility, progression, and the overall opportunity.
So before you write “competitive salary”, ask yourself:
Competitive against what?
Because candidates are doing the research. And if your salary is below market rate, “competitive” won’t change that. Be clear about what you’re offering. Be realistic about what the market is offering.
Salary matters. But it’s not the only thing that matters.
Marketing salaries have continued to increase, with many employers reviewing pay over the last year, and expecting to do the same again in 2027.
But candidates aren’t just comparing salaries.
We’re not going to tell you that candidates don’t care about money. They absolutely do. But the best candidates aren’t necessarily looking for the biggest number on a job advert. They’re looking at the whole salary.
What’s the flexibility? Who will I be working for? What will I actually be doing? Where can this role take me? Will I be trusted? Will I get to do interesting work? What are the softer benefits?
And perhaps most importantly – does this feel like somewhere I actually want to work?
At the end of the day, £32k with a great manager, hybrid working and a clear career path can look much more appealing than £35k in a business where nobody knows what the role actually is.
The biggest mistakes we’re seeing employers make with marketing salaries?
Trying to get the best candidate for the lowest possible salary.
We get it. Budgets are tight. But there’s a difference between being commercially sensible and being unrealistic. If you’ve budgeted £30k, but the market signals the role is worth £38k, you have three choices:
- Increase the budget
- Reduce the requirements
- Accept that the role may take longer to fill
What you can’t really do is advertise a £30k role requiring 10 years’ experience, strategic expertise, specialist digital skills, and the ability to “hit the ground running” and then wonder why the shortlist isn’t great.
So, what should you actually be paying?
As a rough starting point for Birmingham in 2026, we’d expect the market to look something like this:
- Junior Marketing/Marketing Assistant – £25k – £30k
- Marketing Executive – £28k – £35k
- Senior Marketing Executive – £32k – £40k
- Digital Marketing Executive – £28k – £38k
- Marketing Manager – £40k – £60k+
- Digital/Performance Marketing Manager – £40k – £60k+
- Senior/Head of Marketing – £45k – £70k+
These aren’t fixed salary bands.
They’re a good starting point for a conversation.
The right salary will depend on experience, sector, company size, specialism, responsibility and how much autonomy you expect from the person.
And specialist roles can move beyond these ranges. We’ve already seen Birmingham paid media roles being advertised at over £40k.
Here’s what we’d do if we were hiring
Before you put the job advert live, ask yourself three questions.
What does this role actually involve?
Forget the job title. Write down what the person will actually be doing every day.
What experience do we genuinely need?
Not the wish list. The actual requirements. Do you need five years’ experience or do you need someone capable, curious and commercially minded who can learn quickly? There’s a difference.
What will make someone choose us?
If your salary is slightly below market, what else are you offering? Flexibility? Progression? Training? Interesting work? A great manager? A genuinely good culture? As mentioned earlier, candidates aren’t just choosing a salary; they’re choosing their next job.
The bottom line is this…
You don’t necessarily need to be the highest-paying employer in Birmingham. But you do need to know where you sit in the market.
At the end of the day, good marketing talent isn’t disappearing. They’re just getting better at recognising their worth. So if your salary, responsibilities and expectations don’t line up, they’ll probably spot it before you’ve even finished the interview.
The 2026 marketing market is less about what you think a role should cost and more about what the right person is actually worth.
If you’re hiring in Birmingham and aren’t sure whether your salary is competitive, talk to us.
We know what candidates are asking for, what employers are offering and where the gaps are in the market. And we’d much rather help you get the salary right before you advertise the role than tell you why nobody applied six weeks later.