A personal update on recruitment and the market.
From a recruitment perspective, as technology enables individuals to achieve more, the consequences of making the right or wrong hire can become more significant. Businesses are also becoming more selective about hiring, looking carefully at what they spend, the skills they need and how they can build teams more efficiently.
We're seeing that AI adoption varies considerably, even between similar businesses. Some are already using AI agents to manage substantial parts of their workflows, while others are only beginning to experiment with what's possible.
Generally we're seeing roles requiring candidates to manage more channels, and we're also seeing less investment in entry level hiring and a greater focus on experienced professionals and we expect that to continue.
Below is a short snapshot of the recent recruitment market and some info on the Head of Marketing role. It's really a teaser to see if this is of interest and if so we'll develop further into something more substantial.
I've recorded a short message about what we're seeing in recruitment, how AI is changing hiring, and why I'm reconnecting with my network.
What we're seeing across marketing vacancies
A snapshot of 4,837 marketing-tagged job advertisements in The Hidden Market's collected jobs database.
Specify at least five years of experience
Median advertised annual salary (1,249 records)
Include data analysis among their extracted skills
Experience requirements
Percentage of marketing-tagged vacancies by stated experience level
What stood out: Nearly six in ten advertisements specify five or more years of experience, while fewer than one in ten specify just 0–2 years.
Source: The Hidden Market, November 2026. Based on collected marketing-tagged job records.
What we're seeing in the marketing jobs market
We analysed a snapshot of 65 UK Head of Marketing job advertisements in the last 4 weeks to understand what employers are looking for. Here's what stood out.
Cover five or more marketing disciplines
Require hands-on marketing execution
Include marketing ROI accountability
Explicitly require AI experience
Head of Marketing Job Role - What Stood Out:
The Head of Marketing brief is broad. Half of the vacancies involve responsibility for at least five marketing disciplines, spanning brand, content, events, CRM and more.
Leadership doesn't always mean stepping away from delivery. More than half explicitly expect hands-on execution alongside senior responsibilities.
Commercial accountability matters. Nearly seven in ten mention demonstrating marketing ROI, although fewer directly own revenue targets.
AI is appearing in job descriptions, but isn't universally required. Only 17% explicitly require practical AI experience, while 25% list it as desirable.
The use of AI in hiring
There's a lot of discussion about AI in recruitment at the moment, particularly around automated screening, candidate assessment, fairness and transparency.
We've heavily invested in AI to speed up our processes to enable us to help more candidates and clients, but our AI very much implementing our internal processes and we do not making ultimate decisions.
My perspective on AI in recruitment
- More comprehensive candidate reviews: Used well, AI enables employers to assess hundreds or even thousands of applications more thoroughly, including candidates who might previously have been overlooked.
- Better than traditional keyword matching: ATS systems have relied on basic matching for years. AI offers a significant improvement in understanding skills, experience and relevance beyond keywords.
- AI interviews: I'm not a fan. I think interviews benefit from genuine human interaction.
- AI career scouts and coaches: Similarly, I'm not keen on candidates being directed towards AI bots presented as personal career advisers.
- Human bias is often overlooked: Recruitment decisions have traditionally depended on the judgement of one recruiter or hiring manager. That introduces its own significant potential for bias.
- Transparency: Employers can be open about this but I am convinced that this is a huge issue: it's interesting that we're demanding transparency from AI systems when traditional screening methods and human decision-making have rarely faced the same scrutiny.
What we're building
We're developing The Hidden Market into a technology-enabled recruitment and market intelligence platform, combining job market data, AI-powered research and human recruitment expertise.
Our focus is on helping professionals discover better opportunities, employers make more informed hiring decisions, and both understand the changing jobs market.
How we're putting this into practice
Better career discovery
We're expanding our jobs platform and improving candidate matching, while developing tools that allow people to use their own AI assistants to discover relevant career opportunities.
A more flexible way to hire
We're combining market mapping, technology-enabled sourcing and candidate evaluation with experienced recruitment support. We offer fixed-fee, project-based and embedded recruitment options.
Understanding the market
We're using our growing jobs and employer database to examine hiring activity, salary levels, emerging skills and changing employer expectations. The research above is an early example.
What would you like us to investigate?
The market research above is an early example of what we're developing. With more than 300,000 jobs in our database, we can explore more detailed questions about salaries, employer demand, emerging skills and how roles are changing.
I'd be interested to know what information would be genuinely useful to you, whether you're hiring, considering a move or simply interested in how the market is developing.
Let's reconnect
Whether you're considering a career move, planning to hire, exploring AI or just interested in what we're building, it would be good to hear from you.
Above all, I'm interested in reconnecting, exchanging ideas and seeing where we might be able to help each other.
Thanks for reading,
James
Founder, The Hidden Market