Aquent Salary Guide Reveals The Gender Pay Gap Persists In Marketing, Design & Technology Fields

Aquent has released its 2024 Australian Salary Guide for marketing, design, and technology talent.

This year, it explores how marketing, design, and technology roles are expanding, deep dives into gender pay gaps, and examines the movement of salaries year-on-year—both in growth and decline. Paired with Aquent’s 2023 Talent Insights Report, the Salary Guide helps organisations build high-performing teams and fairly compensate them.

“The workplace has been rapidly evolving—from where and how we work, to the technology we use, and even the roles themselves. Aquent’s 2024 Salary Guide gives us an important annual pulse check on the industry and helps us to anticipate what’s to come,” said John H. Chuang, founder and CEO of Aquent. “In Australia, our comprehensive review of nearly 6,500 salaries reveals both the progress that the industry is making and the work left to do. We must use this guide to build a roadmap for a thriving, innovative, and inclusive marketing, design, and technology world”.

Gender pay gap

The gender pay gap is a persistent feature in Australian workplaces. On average, men were paid 16 per cent more than women in 2023 in marketing, design and technology. Unfortunately, the needle has not moved at all as the gender pay gap was 16 per cent in 2022 as well.

This pay gap is slightly narrower than Australia’s national average base salary gender pay gap for 2022-2023 which was 17.2 per cent according to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA).

“These findings aren’t what we hope to see and represent an opportunity for improvement. Gender pay parity is a must. This is not just about creating an inclusive and equitable workplace—a worthy goal in its own right. It’s also about creating higher-performing teams,” said Monique Richards, managing director of Aquent Australia. “Research has shown that teams with greater gender diversity perform better. It should go without saying that high-performing employees in the same role should be paid equally, regardless of their gender or work location”.

Mapping Compensation Trends

• Some salaries that skyrocketed in recent years due to talent shortages may be facing a correction due to the change in market conditions in favour of employers, for example, we’ve seen falling salaries for Creative Directors, CX Designers, Senior UX Designers, Marketing Managers, Content Producers, and eCommerce Managers.
• Double-digit growth for Marketing Directors, UI Designers, Digital Producers, Copywriters, and Front End Developers.
• Flat or nearly flat salaries for Account Managers, Design Directors, Service Designers, UX Designers, Heads of Marketing, and Senior Copywriters.
• This year, men received significantly more pay than women in some of the following roles: Head of Digital (11.1 per cent), CX Lead (28.6 per cent), Senior UX Researcher (17.9 per cent), Studio Manager (12.5 per cent), Marketing Director (33.3 per cent), Campaign Manager (22.4 per cent), and Data Analyst (15.8 per cent).
• Conversely, women are paid more in some of the following roles: Service Designer (9.1 per cent), Senior UI Designer (12.8 per cent), Digital Marketing Manager (3.3 per cent), Digital Marketing Specialist (7.5 per cent), CRM Marketing Manager (11.3 per cent), Performance Marketing Specialist (21.6 per cent), PR and Communications Manager (11.2 per cent), Content Producer (7.8 per cent), and Front End Developer (16.7 per cent).

Emerging roles in high demand

With the advancement of Generative AI and immersive technologies like ChatGPT and Midjourney, there are endless opportunities across every industry. As the world of technology and how we do business changes, so do the roles needed to power our new future. Aquent’s data suggests the future-facing roles set to shape the job market are in Design, Engineering, and Operations, and demand for many of these roles has grown by more than 20 per cent internationally in the last year. These roles include:

• Concept Artist (Median Salary: $99,543)
• AR / XR / VR Engineer (Median Salary: $179,460)
• Language Model Product Manager (Median Salary: $168,899)
• AI Content Moderator/Auditor (Median Salary: $95,546)