Bristol’s social media skills shortage

Over the past year we’ve seen a 26 per cent rise in the number of digital marketing vacancies registered with us, and social media roles rising 100 per cent year-on-year. With the market showing no signs of slowing, and Bristol hosting its first Social Media Week this week, we wanted to delve a bit deeper and find out exactly what the state of play is across the South West when it comes to social media skills.

We spoke to social media industry professionals both in agency and in-house roles across the region and discovered that the majority are planning to invest heavily in social media over the next year. In fact, 42 per cent of respondents to our survey said they were intending to hire additional headcount to support social media activity. These findings mirror our own experience of course, with a huge rise in clients seeking people with skills in this area.

Somewhat inevitably with such high demand, 46 per cent of those we surveyed were worried that a shortage of skills within the market could hold their business back from success. This is coupled with many businesses admitting that they aren’t confident when it comes to being able to pinpoint exactly the social media skills they need to get in in the first place.

These findings show there is definitely more guidance and training needed to help businesses explore and articulate exactly what it is they need and what it is they are looking for. Obviously greater clarity will also benefit potential employees and could reduce the skills gap, in that businesses will get more of the people with the right experience apply for the social media roles they want to fill.

Another challenge here is that everyone’s definition of what a ‘Social Media Professional’ is and where their role should sit is different. We’ve noticed a real blurring of the lines when it comes to where the role of a Social Media Specialist starts and stops. No two businesses seem to have the same opinion.

This lack of understanding of the role and the fact that it’s a ‘sellers market’ as it were, with social media pros able to pick and chose who they work for, it’s no surprise that 83 per cent of those we surveyed would consider a financially motivated job move. In fact, with the knowledge that their skills are in high demand, 72 per cent of social media managers in permanent employment are either looking for or considering a new role.

With the next generation of employees inherently social media savvy and the demand for these skills showing no signs of slowing, we also found some interesting insights when it came to nurturing future industry talent.

A significant 55 per cent of people in the industry we spoke to feel there is limited guidance for younger people that social media is a viable and potentially rewarding career path.

Our respondents thought this barrier to encouraging young talent could be due to a lack of support from parents and teachers about opportunities in the sector. While this is likely born out of misunderstanding, the salary scale for a junior level social media position is often around a very respectable £20,000 mark, with £60,000 not unachievable for an experienced person.

Interestingly, the current generation of Social Media Professionals are typically self-starters, with a massive 91 per cent of contractors within social media saying they are self taught and learned everything they know on the job.

While this open attitude to learning new skills and self-start approach is admirable, given the current skills gap and lack of clarity around social media roles it’s clear as an industry we do need to pull together and increase our knowledge and training in this area.

This is why events like Social Media Week Bristol are so important as they not only give people the opportunity to skill up and learn something new, they also encourage people from across sector, discipline and industry to come together and share understanding and knowledge for the benefit of all.

Gabby Shaw is principal consultant – eCommerce and digital marketing specialist at recruitment agency ADLIB. She’ll be sharing more advice about careers in social media at a Bristol Social Media Week panel discussion. Tickets are available from: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-career-in-social-media-tickets-28050503812