Job dissatisfaction up sharply: The 2024 MarTech Salary and Career Survey

Fewer resources and more stress cut into martech professionals’ job satisfaction this year, according to the 2024 Martech Salary and Career Survey. Job dissatisfaction jumped by 9% for managers and staff and 5% for those at the director level and up.

Overall job satisfaction remains high — two-thirds of martech professionals at every level say they are “extremely” or “somewhat” satisfied. However, those in managers/staff roles saying they were “somewhat unsatisfied” or “not satisfied” increased to 21% in 2024, up from 12% in 2023. For higher-ups, it increased to 18% in 2024, versus 13% in 2023. 

Resources harder to come by

This year saw a significant increase across the board in martech professionals saying their top challenge/frustration was “securing sufficient resources,” which includes time, talent and budget. Sixty-five percent at the director level and up said this in 2024, an increase of 12 percentage points from last year. For managers and staff, it increased 10 percentage points to 48% in 2024, compared to 38% in 2023. 

Next on the list of challenges was “demonstrating/proving a positive impact on the business from martech.” Some 44% of respondents at every level said that this year, up from 32% for director-level roles and 35% for manager/staff roles in 2023. It’s not hard to imagine a connection here. Marketers at every level need to demonstrate a positive impact for their tools today. And without proving impact, they’re unlikely to get the resources they need to do the work.

While everyone has the same challenges, there’s a big difference in what people at different levels find rewarding. Director roles prefer managing more than staff do — 64% versus 23%. And more managers/staff prefer solving technical issues (42% favor it) than directors (29%).

Career priorities

This year’s survey asked respondents about their career priorities for the first time. We found interesting differences depending on job role and gender.

For directors and up, the most common goals were income growth, the ability to mentor and advise others and decreasing work-related stress. Nearly half said increasing their hybrid/remote work flexibility was a low priority, while 28% said earning a promotion was low on their list of personal career priorities.

Managers and staff professionals also cited income growth as their top personal career goal. But they were more likely to make earning a promotion a high priority. They were less interested in making mentoring and advising others a high priority when compared to directors. They were more interested in increasing hybrid/remote work flexibility, with 34% saying it’s a high priority, whereas only 28% of directors did.

Advising/mentoring others was a big difference in priorities between men and women. More than half (53%) of men said it was a high priority, while only 31% of women did. Women also were significantly more likely than men to prioritize getting a promotion (54% to 37%) and growing income (75% to 62%). This makes sense given that women’s median pay in martech is 35% lower than men’s.

Methodology

The 2024 MarTech Salary and Career Survey is a joint project of MarTech.org and chiefmartec.com. We surveyed 305 marketers between December 2023 and February 2024; 297 of those provided salary information. Nearly 63% (191) of respondents live in North America; 16% (50) live in Western Europe. The conclusions in this report are limited to responses from those individuals only. Other regions were excluded due to the limited number of respondents. 

Download your copy of the 2024 MarTech Salary and Career Survey here. No registration required.