The skills needed to succeed in the marketing world are constantly evolving. As a result, it is not uncommon for marketing teams to face skill gaps in areas where they do not have the experience or qualifications necessary to perform their roles effectively.
Of concern, the survey results show that marketing week The 2024 Career and Salary Survey found that nearly half of marketers are not offered upskilling opportunities by their employers to close these gaps.
When asked, “Does your employer offer upskilling opportunities to close the skills gap?”, 48.8% of survey respondents answered “no” and a further 14.7% said they did not know. answered.
Only 36.5% of respondents said they received these opportunities from their employers.
What's even more alarming is that one-third (33.5%) of marketers report that they won't have these opportunities in 2023, a percentage that has jumped over the past year.
Investing in people creates “better things”
At Econsultancy's inaugural Marketing Capability Leaders Forum in February, Channel 4 CMO Zaid Al-Qassab highlighted the benefits of investing in existing staff: [more] People will do “something more.” But if you invest in them at a fraction of the cost of hiring them, you'll be developing people who can actually do “better things.” ”
Al Qassab's comments echo those of Sky Sports & Cinema's marketing director Dave Stratton, who spoke at October's Festival of Marketing. [taking time to learn] …Our competitive advantage is our people. ”
Further supporting the benefits of training over hiring, Econsultancy's 2023 'Win the Digital Skills Race' report found that L&D is the most cost-effective way to add digital skills,61 % rank training/education top in terms of cost. This is higher than outsourcing/partnering (22%) and hiring (17%).
The most important skills gap: data
Then, which one For the second year in a row, the Career and Salary Survey has identified a lack of data and analytics skills as the biggest gap in marketing teams, with 36.9% of survey respondents identifying this as: Skills Gap (up from his 34.4% in 2023).
This is significantly higher than other skills that appear to be in short supply, such as performance marketing (19.6%), content and copywriting (18.1%), and social media (14.8%).
When asked what steps can be taken to address the shortage of data literacy and data specialists in marketing in 2024, data and analytics professionals say they have both hard coding skills and soft insight skills. Eco Consultancy responded that it was necessary to add . and encourage training and career development.
“The UK has a higher acquisition rate of basic data training skills (39%, according to a May 2022 study by Tableau and Forrester Consulting) than its neighbors France (48%), Germany (58%) and other countries. (61%),” said Kevin O'Farrell, associate vice president at Analytic Partners.
“Given the growing importance of data across industries, there is an urgent need to upskill current employees and encourage students to pursue careers in this field.”
Ecosultancy offers a range of marketing and e-commerce training, digital skills benchmarking and runs a bespoke marketing academy.
