Amid heightened pressure to perform, persistent restructures and slashed budgets, some brands are choosing to cut and not replace senior marketing talent.
A quarter (23.8%) of the more than 3,500 respondents to Marketing Week’s 2025 Career & Salary Survey say their business has cut senior marketing leaders, such as CMOs, from the team and not replaced them.
When asked why, well over half (58.4%) say the decision was taken to save on wages, while a quarter (23.7%) claim new hires have been made, but they are not like-for-like replacements. Almost a fifth (19.6%) admit the decision not to replace a marketing leader was down to a lack of succession planning.
When interrogating the free text responses from the sample who work for a business that has cut senior marketing leaders, some say their company is confused about what the CMO role entails, while others believe they fail to understand the importance of the position or don’t properly value marketing in general.
Some suggest CMOs are being set up to fail by not being given authority over the parts of the business they need to succeed. Others have seen the CMO position replaced by roles such as vice-president of growth, while one respondent reported the chief commercial officer in their firm wants to control the marketing function.
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Digging deeper into the data, marketers working in large companies (250 employees and over) are more likely (26.6%) than their peers within SMEs (20.1%) to see senior marketing talent cut from the team and not replaced.
The desire to save on wages is cited as the main reason for not replacing CMOs within both SMEs (57.9%) and large organisations (58.6%).
Over a quarter (26.9%) of marketers working in small businesses claim their firm has recruited new talent to replace a senior leader, but not a like-for-like replacement. This is also the reality in more than a fifth (21.8%) of large corporates.
Issues around succession planning have also contributed to the number of SMEs (20.5%) not replacing marketing leaders and it’s a similar case within large organisations (18.6%).
A quarter of marketers in B2C firms (24.1%), and a similar proportion working within B2B (23.2%), have seen senior marketers such as CMOs cut from their team and not replaced.
As above, the main reason cited by both B2B (56.4%) and B2C marketers (60.2%) is to save money on wages. A quarter of those working in consumer-focused businesses (24.2%) and a fifth (20%) in B2B report new hires have been made who are not like-for-like replacements.
A lack of succession planning looks to be more of an issue within B2C (21.9%) than B2B (14.5%) businesses.
The decision being taken within a quarter of companies to remove and not replace senior marketing talent is contributing to persistently short average tenures within the industry.
According to the Career & Salary Survey data, three-quarters (66.3%) of marketers have been in their current role for three years or less. Under than a fifth (18.9%) have been in their current position for four to six years, a figure which more than halves to 6.9% of marketers who have been in role for seven to 10 years.
Looking specifically at senior leaders, 60.9% of CMOs, vice-presidents and marketing directors have been in their current role for less than three years. The same is true for 65.9% of senior managers/managers.
Marketing Week will be reporting on exclusive data from the 2025 Career & Salary Survey over the coming weeks, including exploring pay gaps, in-demand skills and the changing face of recruitment.
