2026 Marketing and Creative Hiring and Job Market Trends

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Marketing and creative teams are entering 2026 with ambitious goals and evolving challenges. Leaders are focused on delivering impactful campaigns, embracing automation and AI, and strengthening brand strategy—but resource gaps and new skill requirements create obstacles. To succeed, teams will need to be just as adaptable as they are creative and digitally fluent.

Organizations that act now to secure specialized marketing and creative talent and upskill existing staff will be better positioned to innovate, achieve their goals and maintain momentum. Beyond technical skills like marketing analytics and AI literacy, soft skills such as critical thinking and problem solving remain essential for achieving goals.

Hiring managers: Get customized insights and workforce strategies from a Robert Half talent solutions professional.

Strategic priorities for 2026

Marketing and creative leaders shared their strategic priorities for 2026. Expect demand—and competition—to increase for professionals with the specialized skills needed to advance these critical initiatives.

Marketing analytics and performance

AI and machine learning integration

Content marketing strategy

Customer data management and compliance initiatives

Marketing automation initiatives

Marketing and creative teams face skills shortfalls that can stall critical initiatives. Only 4% of leaders reported having the necessary capabilities to accomplish priority projects, and 63% said they need to upskill current team members.

Flexible staffing solutions also can help teams gain the necessary expertise to keep operations moving.

Brand or
product
marketing Marketing
automation AI and ML
applications SEO and
paid search
marketing Soft skills
and
leadership Brand or
product
marketing Marketing
automation AI and ML
applications SEO and
paid search
marketing Soft skills
and
leadership

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Creativity and
innovation Adaptability
and continuous
learning Critical
thinking and
problem solving Communication Emotional
intelligence Creativity and
innovation Adaptability
and continuous
learning Critical
thinking and
problem solving Communication Emotional
intelligence

Key technical competencies

Recruiting professionals with specialized abilities enables leaders to advance strategic initiatives. An analysis of thousands of job postings over the past year shows which technical competencies employers value most in marketing and creative—making a competitive hiring strategy essential.

Technical skills

A/B testing

AI-powered marketing

Customer experience

Data visualization

Marketing workflows and automation

Personalization

Product management

Storytelling

Software proficiencies

Adobe

Figma

GA4

Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Tableau

Hiring plans for 2026

45%

of marketing and creative leaders said finding skilled professionals is more challenging than a year ago.

65%

plan to increase permanent headcount in the first half of 2026.

61%

plan to increase contract or temporary hiring in the first half of 2026.

Roles shaping hiring strategies

The following positions have been experiencing above-average sequential growth and consistent demand throughout the past 12 months, according to an analysis of thousands of job postings and Robert Half placements:

Digital marketing specialist

Digital project manager

Email marketing specialist

Graphic designer

Marketing manager

Product manager

Social media specialist

UX designer

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More to explore

Labor market overview Stay on top of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and job posting data to learn about today’s hiring market.

Small business recruitment trends Get up to speed on small business staffing trends and find out what it takes to attract and hire top talent.

2026 Salary Guide Explore the latest data for roles across 7 professional fields and what you should pay or earn in local and national markets.

2026 Marketing job market: In-demand roles and hiring trends Explore key insights from Robert Half on hiring trends in marketing and creative. Find out which roles are hottest and how leaders can stay competitive in 2026.

The surveys cited were developed by Robert Half and conducted by an independent research firm. Results may not total 100% due to rounding or allowing for multiple responses. Respondents included executives, hiring managers and workers from small (10-99 employees), midsize (100-999 employees) and large (1,000+ employees) businesses in private, publicly listed and public sector organizations across the U.S.

Over 1.5 million new positions from more than 9,000 independent job boards and company websites are represented in this report, including thousands of placements from Robert Half. Positions are categorized into more than 430 job titles within Robert Half’s Salary Guide using a proprietary mapping methodology that employs state-of-the-art large language models. This dataset includes roles across the finance and accounting, technology, marketing and creative, legal, administrative and customer support, non-clinical healthcare, and human resources professions.