The year 2024 proved to be a bit of a wild ride for the job market. Companies were hitting the pause button on hiring, layoffs were aplenty, and salaries were barely keeping up with inflation and rising living costs.
As companies tightened their belts and job seekers flocked to the job market in 2024, this created a competitive job market with companies having their pick of the lot. But despite all the challenges of 2024, it's not all doom and gloom for 2025's job market.
The big picture of the Australian job market & salaries in 2025
As remote work policies are being rolled back and budget worries remain, 2025 is proving to be a complicated hiring landscape. This saw salaries in marketing, design, and technology only grow by about 6% across the board according to Aquent's 2025 Australian Salary Guide.
Return-to-office mandates and the rollback of remote policies are likely to add complexity for both employers and candidates. No matter what side of the fence you sit on in this debate, return-to-office mandates are definitely creating a bit of a tug-of-war between employers and employees—especially when it comes to flexibility.
Aquent's Salary Guide found Technology roles are leading the pack amongst these industry verticals with some serious salary growth. While Marketing and Design roles are still doing well, some are growing a little slower than others.
Here's a quick peek across the board of year-on-year (YOY) salary growth:
- Tech roles? Up a solid 11.4%.
- Marketing roles? A respectable 8.8% bump.
- Design roles? A more modest 6.4%.
A more detailed breakdown of salary growth by area of expertise:
- Account Management and Strategy: Up 2.3%.
- Creative Design: Up 6.4%.
- Data and Analytics: 0.0% growth.
- Human-Centred Design: Up 5.1%.
- Marketing and Communications: Up 8.8%.
- Product, Project, and Program Management : Up 2.1%.
- Production and Studio Management: Up 2.9%.
- Web, App, and Software Development: Up 11.4%.
Salary growth is a very mixed bag. Some roles like CX Leads and Technical Leads are seeing massive growths, whilst others, like SEO Managers and Senior Strategists, are experiencing drops in salary growth. You can access these insights and more in our 2025 Australian Salary Guide: Download it now
The Gender Pay Gap
The gender pay gap. It's still a prevalent issue, but there’s a glimmer of hope. Australia is making gradual progress in addressing the gender pay gap, and for roles across marketing, design and technology, it’s shrunk a substantial amount from 16% to 11% year-on-year.
So, despite progress being made, there is still a long way to go before we achieve full pay parity.
There are discrepancies across the board with some roles having women earning more, such as Front End Developers (Women paid 2.7% more) or Campaign Managers (Women paid 19.8% more). Whilst others report men earning more than women such as SEO Managers (Women paid 26.6% less) and UI Designers (Women paid 15.4% less).
AI and emerging roles
Generative AI is shaking things up—big time. It's changing existing roles and creating new ones. Think Machine Learning Engineers, AI Content Moderators, and AR/VR Designers. These are the jobs of the future.
Below are the emerging roles we feel have strategic value in 2025 and beyond:
Design
- Character Artist
- Animator
- Technical Artist
- Prototyper
- Chatbot/Conversation Designer
- Digital Accessibility Specialist
- Technology Designer
- AR/VR Designer
Engineering
- Machine Learning Engineer
- Natural Language Processing Engineer
- AR/XR/VR Engineer
- Blockchain Engineer
- Prompt Engineer
- Data Engineer
Operations
- Language Model Product Manager
- UX Researcher (Immersive)
- XR Event Marketer
- AI Content Moderator/Auditor
What's next for 2025?
As things start to pick up, expect more people to be on the move with increased talent mobility. Companies that focus on strategic hiring and flexibility offerings, such as hybrid work, will have a serious edge in attracting and retaining top talent.
Using accurate, current compensation data will be crucial in staying competitive, adapting to market shifts, and attracting the right talent needed to succeed. Get the 2025 Australian Salary Guide and access salaries and insights from 100+ roles across marketing, design and technology: Download it now
It feels like a jungle out there, but with the right info, you can make informed decisions for the year ahead.
About the author
As the Managing Director, my role is to continually review, develop, diversify and grow our business in Australia. Looking at our strategic direction, financial management (budgeting, financial forecasting, P&L, etc), people management, local sales and marketing, talent acquisition, retention and performance management. I'm an enthusiastic, positive and high impact leader with a proven ability to inspire high performing teams. I have over 15 years experience across general management, solutions focused sales, operations, finance and workforce solutions within multinational businesses. What I love: communicating and connecting with my colleagues and our clients to create the ultimate partnership. I'm good at: future-focused thinking, streamlining business operations, driving growth and inspiring high-performing sales teams. I have demonstrated experience in creating a client-centric approach along with implementing financial controls, productivity improvements and change management. What inspires me: my team, results, high energy, a growth mindset and positivity. What is my leadership style: I like to lead with integrity, self-awareness, courage, respect, empathy, and gratitude. I'm passionate, energetic, genuine and decisive and I look to establish a strong rapport with all of our staff both locally and internationally. What are my strengths: a deep understanding of the APAC region, identifying opportunities for growth, strategy, storytelling, people and culture and P&L management. Who I am outside of work: a partner, a very hands-on mum to three amazing tiny humans and fur pawrent to the world's laziest border collie! As someone with a ridiculous (and somewhat annoying) amount of energy, I can usually be found at the gym, the beach, on a trampoline, soccer field or on a climbing frame hoping to out-energise my kids!
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