The Datum Report

Occupation 1132 · Managers, directors and senior officials

Marketing, sales and advertising directors

Half of full-time marketing, sales and advertising directors in the UK earn more than £94,135 a year, and half earn less.

Marketing, sales and advertising directors plan, organise and direct advertising campaigns and market research and formulate and implement an organisation’s marketing, sales and social media policies.

How people enter it

Entry is generally via career progression from related occupations (e.g. marketing manager, advertising accounts manager, sales manager), although in practice most will hold a degree. Professional qualifications are also available and off and on-the-job training is possible. Entrants to professional qualifications from relevant bodies (such as the Chartered Institute of Marketing) require GCSEs/S grades, A levels/H grades, a BTEC/SQA award, a degree or equivalent qualification and/or relevant experience.

What the work involves

• liaises with client to discuss product/service to be marketed and develops the most appropriate strategy to deliver the objectives
• discusses employer’s or clients’ requirements, plans and monitors surveys and analyses of customers’ reactions to products
• defines target group for advertising campaigns and implements strategy through appropriate media planning work
• conceives advertising campaigns to impart the desired product image in an effective and economical way
• examines and analyses sales figures, advises on and monitors marketing campaigns and promotional activities
• controls the recruitment and training of staff
• stays abreast of changes in market trends and advertising rates
• produces and/or assesses reports and recommendations concerning marketing, advertising and sales strategies

Also called

Account director (advertising) · Commercial director · Marketing director · Media director · Sales director

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for marketing, sales and advertising directors, full-time employees, 2023 to 2025. Each point is that year's ASHE April snapshot as published — revisions are not backfilled into earlier years, and a year ONS withheld is a gap rather than a joined line.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Year-on-year change

The change from each year to the next, in per cent, computed from the figures in the chart above — so the two cannot disagree.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Pay by region

Median gross annual pay for full-time employees, ranked, against the UK figure. 8 of 11 regions are published: ONS withholds a cell where the survey sample cannot support it, and those are shown as gaps rather than dropped — an absent region is not a region without the work in it.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Period 2025. Table

Every regional figure

ONS does not publish occupational pay below region. Cells the survey could not support are shown as withheld, with its reason — adding a region split to a specific occupation leaves roughly a tenth of cells publishable.

Common questions

Classified alongside this

Charitable organisation managers and directors · Financial managers and directors · Functional managers and directors n.e.c. · Human resource managers and directors · Information technology directors · Public relations and communications directors · Purchasing managers and directors