March Market Update – Australian FMCG and CPG
for Sales, Marketing & Category
As 2024 moves from the beginning of the year to March we can see the trends settling. Our most downloaded pod of 2023 was the Market Predictions Pod. We’ve recorded 2024 and it’ll be on your favourite podcast platform very soon!
Getting a little more micro, what’s happening right now in the world of sales, marketing, and category recruitment?
Sales
The resurgence of the (re-branded) National Business Manager (NBM) role is here to stay. The demand is for future leaders who are experience gathering as they build broad career paths. Gone are the days of the NBM being the role for the single customer specialist, and where sales professionals would get stuck and unable to progress. Demand for National Account Manager (NAM) roles remains constant. While not at the highs of 2023, it is still the most common role the [axr] Sales & Marketing business recruits. Senior recruitment is steadily trending upwards – we’ve had a constant flow of roles at Customer Director and Sales Director levels for the past 9 months.
Marketing
We called it last month, demand for marketing talent is back! H2 2023 was strangely flat compared to sales and category, but our portfolio of roles from Brand Manager to Marketing Manager grows in line with what we see across the FMCG market. Watch this space as we expand our offering in 2024 to the broader consumer market. The senior market still lags in sales and category, but we do believe that gap will close as the year continues. The other trends to watch are the increase in demand for contract roles and innovation/project talent.
Category
Our strong brand as a specialist recruiter in this space can skew our perspective – it’s a tough area for clients to recruit themselves, so we do get a disproportionate number of briefs relative to the size of the function. The role in highest demand is the Category Lead, the new role we identified in 2022 that sits between Category Manager and Head of Category. Check out our Salary Guides for all the category role definitions.
2024 Salary Guides are on their way!
Talking of our Salary Guides, the 2024 editions will be out any day now. You’ll be able to access them directly from our website. We’ve kept all the good stuff, added a little more insight, avoided the temptation of most recruiters to do too much (and say so little), and will never lose sight of answering the core question you need to know, “what should I be paid for the role I’m doing?”. As always, we welcome feedback.
If you haven’t yet signed up for our Salary Guides, you can do so here.
Have a great month!
Our “[axr] How’s The Market Barometer” this month reflects vacancy numbers and candidate supply.
VACANCIES: 8 out of 10.
CANDIDATES: 8 out of 10.
Overall, we are seeing a strong and balanced market.
