Free midway report · September 2026
There Is No Ladder Yet
The first findings from the biggest piece of research ever done into social media careers. What practitioners are actually climbing, who built the rungs, and why the profession keeps losing the people at the top of them.
Social Media Career Ladder Research 2026
There Is No Ladder Yet
MIDWAY REPORT · SOCIALDAY / THE SAUCE
describe their career path in social as very clear
name their company not understanding social as the biggest block on progression
say commercial skills are where they most need support, while craft is what employers reward
the salary spread contributors report sitting behind one job title
Why this research exists
We published the Social Media Career Ladder earlier this year as a working model rather than a finished framework, and then we set out to prove it wrong.
Within weeks people were using it to argue for pay rises, to write job descriptions, and to work out whether the job they were in had a next step at all. That is exactly why it needed testing rather than promoting, because a framework people are negotiating their salaries against has an obligation to be right.
So we opened an industry wide survey to social media professionals at every level, and alongside it started a programme of recorded interviews with practitioners, consultants, educators, agency leaders and the people who hire into these roles. We have worked through the ladder rung by rung, asking the same question every time, which is where does this hold and where does it break.
This midway report is what we have found so far. The research is not finished, and some of what is in here is urgent enough that the industry should be arguing about it now.
What we have found so far
-
01
Almost nobody can see the ladder they are on
Around one in ten describe their career path as very clear. This does not resolve with seniority, and it only improves for the people who have left social behind.
-
02
The first rung is not an entry rung
People are routinely hired into the bottom of the ladder and asked to carry two rungs of work, including strategic ownership, while being described and paid as support.
-
03
The pay problem is a definition problem
The most common blocker is not pay, it is the organisation not understanding what social is for. Pay is the accurate expression of that misunderstanding rather than a separate failure.
-
04
Promotion runs on unpaid work
Taking on responsibilities outside the job description is named more often than strong performance as the thing that produced a promotion.
-
05
Leading the function often means being the function
A significant number of people carrying head of social titles have nobody to lead, which makes seniority impossible to practise and is then used as a reason to downgrade the role.
“Everyone’s a social media manager, from salaries that are 19k to 80k, and they have the same titles. So how can you even apply, if the scope is the same?”Erica Perazza / head of social, Biffa
What is inside the report
Around eleven thousand words, drawing on the industry survey and on recorded interviews with practitioners, consultants, educators and agency leaders. It reads in the browser and prints cleanly if you want a copy to keep.
Who this is for
Practitioners working out what their next rung looks like and what they should be paid for it, hiring managers writing job specifications and setting bands, and educators preparing people for a profession whose entry route has changed underneath them.
Get the midway report
Read it now, and keep the link
Tell us where to send it and we will email you the link to the full report, plus first sight of the State of Social Media Careers report when it lands.
Thank you, the link is on its way
Check your inbox in the next few minutes. If it has not arrived, look in your promotions or spam folder.
The people who shaped it
Every interview contributor gave their time to pressure test the framework rung by rung, and every one of them is credited in the report.
About the research and the researcher
The Social Media Career Ladder Research 2026 is led by Lucy Hall, founder and chief executive of SocialDay, and published on The Sauce. Lucy designed the framework, built the survey and conducted every interview in this research personally. It combines an industry wide survey with a programme of recorded practitioner interviews, and it will be updated annually.
Survey responses are used in line with the permission each person gave. Interview contributors review their write-ups before publication, and every quotation is checked against its source recording.
Add your voice to the data
The survey is still open, and the research is deliberately thin in places we want to fix before the full report. We are short of the people who do the hiring, short of voices from outside the United Kingdom, and short of the public and non-profit sectors.
Five minutes, any level, anywhere
If you work in social media at any level and in any kind of organisation, the survey is open and every response counts.
If you would rather talk than type, we are still interviewing. We are particularly looking for people who have moved from head of social into wider leadership, and for the people who hire into these roles.
The Social Media Career Ladder Research 2026 is a SocialDay project, published on The Sauce. SocialDay is a trading name of SocialDay Ltd.