Marketing Director Recruitment

Marketing Director Executive Search

Hiring the right Marketing Director is one of the most commercially significant appointments a growing business can make — and one of the hardest to get right. Marketing leadership spans an unusually broad range of specialisms: brand, digital, demand generation, product marketing, customer retention, communications, and data analytics. No Marketing Director is expert in all of them. The skill in making a great appointment is identifying which capabilities matter most to the business at its current stage of growth — and finding a candidate who excels in exactly those areas, not just marketing broadly.

Exec Capital places Marketing Directors for UK businesses on a permanent, interim, and fractional basis. We have an active network of Marketing Director candidates across B2B and B2C, digital-first and traditional, and sector-specific backgrounds. Every search is run by our specialist team, with Adrian Lawrence FCA overseeing each mandate.

This page is about permanent marketing director recruitment: hiring a salaried, full-time Marketing Director who will own the marketing function for the long term. In most UK SMEs and mid-market companies, the Marketing Director is the top marketing job — one level below a Chief Marketing Officer where a business has one, and one level above a Head of Marketing. If you need cover for a fixed period, or senior marketing judgement for a day or two a week, the sections on interim and fractional options below explain where those routes fit and which of our pages covers them.

In our experience, the Marketing Director search is the one where the brief most often needs challenging before it can be searched against effectively. “We need a strong marketer with digital experience and good leadership skills” could describe a thousand candidates. What actually determines whether the appointment works is understanding the commercial model — how the business generates revenue, what role marketing plays in that, and what specific problems the new Marketing Director will need to solve in the first twelve months. That specificity is what separates a successful appointment from a frustrating one, and it is why every search we run starts with the commercial model rather than a job description.

How Marketing Director Recruitment Works

As Marketing Director headhunters, we follow the same six stages on every search. The timetable is not fixed: we agree it with you at briefing, because it depends on how specialist the brief is, how many people need to interview, and — most of all — the notice period of the candidate you choose.

Not sure whether you need a permanent hire at all? That is a normal starting point. We will talk through permanent, interim and fractional options at the first conversation, and tell you plainly if we think a different route would serve the business better.

Marketing Director vs CMO: Which Does Your Business Need?

Marketing Director and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) are sometimes used interchangeably, but in most organisations they represent different levels of seniority, scope, and board-level authority. Understanding the distinction matters when defining the brief and identifying the right candidate profile.

A Marketing Director is typically the most senior marketing leader in a mid-market or growth-stage business — responsible for the full marketing function, reporting to the CEO or Managing Director, and managing the marketing team and its agency relationships. They may or may not sit on the executive leadership team. In most UK businesses with annual revenues below £50m, the Marketing Director title is conventional and appropriate.

A CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) is a C-suite designation — sitting alongside the CFO, COO, and CEO on the executive board. The CMO has a broader strategic mandate, typically including brand strategy at enterprise level, product marketing, customer strategy, and often oversight of the customer experience function. In businesses where marketing is a primary driver of competitive advantage — technology companies, consumer brands, financial services businesses — a CMO rather than a Marketing Director is the appropriate C-suite appointment. For CMO appointments, see our CMO recruitment page and our fractional CMO service.

A Head of Marketing is typically a more operational appointment — managing marketing execution and the team without the strategic accountability or seniority that defines the Marketing Director role. Many excellent Marketing Directors have been Heads of Marketing earlier in their careers; the step up requires a different orientation — commercial responsibility, CEO relationship management, board communication — that not all Heads of Marketing make successfully.

If your business has annual revenues of £5m–£50m and needs its first dedicated marketing leader, or a senior marketer who will own the commercial marketing strategy alongside the CEO, a Marketing Director is almost certainly the right appointment. If you are unsure, Exec Capital will work through the scope with you as the first step of the brief process.

Marketing Director vs CMO vs Head of Marketing — which do you need?

The table below sets out how the three roles usually differ in a UK business. Titles are used loosely, so treat it as a guide to scope rather than a rule about names: what matters is what the person will own and who they answer to.

Decision rules we use with clients:

• Hire a Head of Marketing if the CEO or a Commercial Director already sets marketing strategy and you need someone to execute it well, run the agencies and keep the channels performing.
• Hire a Marketing Director if you need one person to own the strategy, the budget and the team, and to be held to account for marketing’s contribution to pipeline or revenue — reporting to the CEO and speaking for marketing in management meetings.
• Hire a CMO if marketing is a primary source of competitive advantage, spans several brands, markets or product lines, or needs to be represented on the executive board and in front of investors with customer and product strategy in scope.
• Start fractional if the business needs director-level thinking but cannot yet justify, or fill, a full-time diary at that level.
• Do not inflate the title. Calling a Marketing Director role “CMO” to attract candidates usually backfires: the people it attracts expect a C-suite remit and leave when they find a director-level job.

Our Marketing Director job description sets out a full role profile you can adapt once the level is settled.

When Should a Business Hire a Marketing Director?

The most common triggers for a Marketing Director appointment that Exec Capital encounters include:

• Revenue growth has stalled and the cause is insufficient marketing leadership: Businesses that have grown to £5m–£20m through founder-led sales and word of mouth often reach a plateau where further growth requires a systematic approach to lead generation, brand awareness, and customer acquisition that the current team cannot deliver without senior marketing leadership.
• Private equity investment: PE investors typically prioritise marketing capability early in their ownership because commercial growth is the primary value creation lever. A Marketing Director who can build the demand generation engine, own the brand narrative with investors and customers, and operate in the high-accountability PE reporting environment is a priority appointment for many PE-backed businesses within the first year. See our private equity recruitment capability.
• Digital transformation of the go-to-market: Businesses shifting from traditional outbound sales to digital-led customer acquisition need Marketing Director-level leadership to lead the transition — choosing the right channels, building the content and data infrastructure, and integrating marketing and sales in a way that converts digital activity into commercial results.
• New market entry or product launch: Entering a new geography, launching a new product line, or repositioning the brand all require senior marketing leadership that can manage the strategic and operational complexity of a significant commercial initiative alongside running the existing marketing function.
• Departure of an existing Marketing Director: When a Marketing Director leaves, the commercial momentum they have built — pipeline, brand awareness, agency relationships, team capability — begins to erode faster than most businesses expect. An interim Marketing Director appointment while the permanent search is conducted preserves commercial continuity.
• First dedicated marketing hire at a scaling business: Many B2B technology companies, professional services firms, and consumer businesses reach £5m–£10m revenue without a dedicated marketing function. The first Marketing Director appointment at these businesses typically needs to build as well as lead — establishing the foundations of a marketing function rather than managing an existing one.

There are also signs that a permanent Marketing Director is not yet the right hire. If there is no marketing budget to speak of, no one for the new director to lead, and no agreement at board level on what marketing is for, a full-time director will spend their first year arguing for resources rather than producing results. In that position, a fractional marketing leader who sets the strategy, builds the case for investment and hires the first one or two team members is often the better first step, with a permanent appointment following once the function has something to run.

What Does a Marketing Director Do?

The Marketing Director’s responsibilities span strategy, commercial delivery, team leadership, and external relationships. The precise scope varies significantly with the business model, the size of the marketing team, and the commercial priorities of the board — but the core functional areas typically include:

Marketing Strategy and Commercial Planning

The Marketing Director owns the company’s marketing strategy — defining the positioning, the target audience, the channel mix, and the investment framework that will drive commercial growth. They translate the business strategy into a marketing plan with clear objectives, measurable KPIs, and a resource allocation that the board can scrutinise. This includes owning the annual marketing budget, managing the allocation across channels and activities, and demonstrating the commercial return on that investment in a language the CEO and CFO understand.

Demand Generation and Lead Pipeline

For B2B businesses particularly, the Marketing Director’s most commercially critical accountability is lead generation — building and managing the marketing programmes, content, events, paid channels, and partnership activities that fill the sales pipeline. They work closely with the Sales Director or Commercial Director to define lead quality standards, manage the handoff between marketing and sales, and ensure that marketing investment is translating into revenue opportunity at the right volume and conversion rate. Where that relationship is weak, it is often worth hiring the two roles together — see our Sales Director recruitment service.

Brand Strategy and Communications

The Marketing Director is the guardian of the company’s brand — the positioning, visual identity, tone of voice, and the way the company presents itself to customers, employees, investors, and the market. Brand decisions have long-term consequences that compound over years, and the Marketing Director’s judgement on brand architecture, brand investment, and brand consistency across channels is one of the most valuable contributions they make. This includes managing the company’s communications programme — PR, thought leadership, analyst relationships, and media coverage.

Digital Marketing and Performance

Digital marketing has become the dominant channel for most UK businesses — combining paid search, paid social, SEO, content marketing, email, and digital events into an integrated programme that the Marketing Director oversees. They do not need to be a technical specialist in every channel, but they need sufficient digital literacy to evaluate performance, challenge agency recommendations, make informed channel investment decisions, and ensure the business’s digital presence is competitive. The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) sets the professional standard for UK marketers through Chartered Marketer status, which requires graded CIM membership and a record of continuing professional development — a useful signal, though not a substitute for evidence of commercial results.

Customer Insights and Data

The most commercially effective Marketing Directors are data-driven in their decision-making — using customer insight, market research, and performance analytics to inform strategy, allocate investment, and measure return. They oversee the company’s approach to customer segmentation, value proposition development, and competitive positioning — ensuring that marketing strategy is grounded in evidence rather than assumption. For businesses with significant customer data assets, the Marketing Director typically works closely with the CTO or CIO on the data infrastructure that enables effective marketing analytics. See our CTO recruitment page for technology leadership appointments.

Marketing Team Leadership

The Marketing Director recruits, manages, and develops the marketing team — setting performance expectations, managing succession, and building the capability the function needs to deliver the marketing strategy. They also manage the company’s portfolio of agency relationships — creative agencies, PR agencies, media agencies, digital specialists — ensuring the business gets commercial value from its agency spend and that internal and external resource is deployed effectively.

What a Marketing Director Typically Delivers in the First 90 Days

A new Marketing Director should not be judged on revenue in the first quarter — most marketing investment takes longer than that to show up in sales. They should, however, be judged on how quickly they understand the business, how honestly they report what they find, and whether the plan they bring back is one the CEO and finance team can hold them to. A typical first 90 days looks like this:

Days 1–30: listen and audit

• Meet customers, the sales team, finance and the wider leadership team to understand how revenue is actually won and lost.
• Audit current spend by channel and agency, and what each is producing in leads, pipeline, sales and retention.
• Check the basics: tracking, CRM data quality, website conversion, brand consistency and any regulatory sign-off process.
• Assess each member of the team and each agency relationship.

Days 31–60: diagnose and plan

• Agree with sales a shared definition of a qualified lead and the handover between the two teams.
• Set out where the budget should move, what should stop and what should be tested.
• Agree the small set of measures marketing will report to the board each month.
• Identify the gaps in the team and whether to fill them with hires, agencies or freelancers.

Days 61–90: commit and start delivering

• Present a twelve-month marketing plan and budget the CEO and CFO sign off.
• Ship two or three early improvements that are visible to sales and customers — often fixes to conversion, messaging or lead routing rather than new campaigns.
• Start any agency reviews or team changes the audit has shown to be needed.
• Report progress against the agreed measures for the first time.

Agreeing this shape before the offer is made is one of the simplest ways to reduce hiring risk. It tells candidates what success looks like, and it gives you an early read on whether the appointment is on track. Our executive onboarding guide covers the wider onboarding process for senior hires.

B2B vs B2C Marketing Director: Understanding the Difference

The distinction between B2B and B2C marketing leadership is one of the most important factors in a Marketing Director appointment — and one of the most frequently underestimated. A Marketing Director who has built their career in consumer marketing is not automatically well suited to a B2B demand generation role, and vice versa. The commercial models, the channel mix, the sales cycle dynamics, and the performance metrics are fundamentally different.

B2B Marketing Directors typically focus on: demand generation and pipeline creation; account-based marketing (ABM) for enterprise accounts; content marketing and thought leadership; trade events and partner channel programmes; and sales enablement — creating the materials, tools, and content that the sales team uses to convert opportunities. The primary commercial metric is qualified pipeline and pipeline-to-revenue conversion, measured over a sales cycle that may be months long.

B2C Marketing Directors typically focus on: brand awareness and share of voice; digital acquisition across paid and organic channels; customer lifecycle management and retention; loyalty and CRM programmes; and consumer insight and category analysis. The primary commercial metrics are customer acquisition cost, customer lifetime value, and brand health — measured over a shorter conversion cycle but with more complexity in attribution.

Exec Capital identifies B2B and B2C background as a primary filter in every Marketing Director search — before skills, sector, or seniority — because the gap between the two is significant and rarely bridgeable quickly in a new role.

Permanent, Interim, or Fractional Marketing Director?

Permanent Marketing Director

A permanent appointment is appropriate where the business needs sustained, long-term marketing leadership — where the Marketing Director will build the brand, develop the team, and own the commercial growth strategy over a multi-year horizon. Exec Capital manages the full search on a retained basis. We agree the timetable with you at briefing; in practice the largest single factor is usually the notice period the preferred candidate has to serve.

Interim Marketing Director

An interim appointment provides experienced marketing leadership for a defined period — covering a departure, managing a specific campaign programme, leading the marketing workstream during a transaction, or bridging while the permanent search proceeds. Exec Capital has an active network of experienced interim Marketing Directors, including digital-first operators, brand specialists, and B2B demand generation leaders. For other interim C-suite and director appointments, see our interim Marketing Director page and our interim CMO service.

Fractional Marketing Director

A fractional Marketing Director works with the business on a part-time basis — typically one to three days per week — providing senior marketing leadership without the cost of a full-time hire. This model is particularly well suited to businesses in the £2m–£15m revenue range that need Marketing Director-level thinking but do not yet have the scale to justify a full-time appointment. A fractional Marketing Director can set the strategy, manage the agency relationships, oversee the team, and provide the commercial marketing accountability the board needs, while the cost structure remains proportionate.

Which format fits?

Other ways to hire a marketing leader: for an ongoing two-or-three-day arrangement at C-suite level, see our part-time CMO service, and for a side-by-side explanation of the flexible models, read fractional vs interim vs part-time CMO. If marketing is one of several senior roles you need covered flexibly, our fractional C-suite service places part-time leaders across finance, operations and technology as well. Interim and fractional engagements also need an IR35 status decision; for medium and large clients, HMRC’s off-payroll working guidance places that decision with the client.

Marketing Director Salaries: UK Market Rates

Marketing Director compensation varies with business size, sector, and the commercial complexity of the role. The most reliable public reference point is the Office for National Statistics’ Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings. Its 2026 provisional results put median gross annual pay for full-time employees in the occupation group “marketing, sales and advertising directors” (SOC 1132) at around £96,400 (ONS, ASHE Table 14). Two cautions: the group combines marketing and sales directors, and it is a median across businesses of every size, so it says little about the top or bottom of the market.

In practice, the package for a permanent Marketing Director is shaped by a handful of factors, and we would rather talk you through them for your specific role than quote a range that does not fit it:

• Base salary rises with the size of the budget and team, the number of markets or brands, and whether the role sits on the executive team.
• Annual bonus is usual, and works best when it is tied to a small number of measures marketing genuinely influences — pipeline, acquisition cost, retention — alongside company performance.
• Equity or long-term incentives are common in private equity-backed and venture-funded businesses, where the Marketing Director is often part of the management team that shares in the exit.
• Benefits such as pension contributions, car allowance, private medical cover and hybrid working shape how competitive an offer looks.
• Interim Marketing Directors are paid a day rate, and fractional Marketing Directors a day rate or monthly retainer based on the days committed.

For CMO-level and wider executive pay, see our executive salary guide. Exec Capital provides market rate guidance as part of every search brief.

What to Look for When Hiring a Marketing Director

Commercial orientation, not just marketing expertise: The most effective Marketing Directors think first about commercial outcomes — revenue, pipeline, customer acquisition cost, retention — and second about marketing outputs. Candidates who lead with campaign metrics, creative quality, or brand health without connecting them directly to commercial performance are not ready for Marketing Director accountability. Ask every candidate to describe a marketing programme they led and quantify the commercial impact it generated.

Relevant channel depth for your business model: A Marketing Director with deep SEO and content expertise is unlikely to be the right appointment for a business that generates most of its revenue through outbound sales and trade events, and vice versa. Map the marketing channels that are most important to your commercial model against the candidate’s track record before the first interview — the fit needs to be at channel level, not just at the level of “digital marketing experience.”

CEO relationship capability: The Marketing Director / CEO relationship is one of the most important in a growing business. The Marketing Director needs to earn the CEO’s commercial trust — demonstrating that marketing investment is generating a return — while also providing the strategic marketing input that a CEO without marketing expertise needs in order to make good decisions about brand and market positioning. This relationship requires a combination of commercial rigour, clear communication, and patience with non-marketers that not all senior marketing professionals possess.

Agency management experience: Most businesses of meaningful scale use agencies for at least some of their marketing activity — and the quality of agency management directly determines the return on that spend. Ask candidates specifically how they have managed agency relationships: how they set briefs, how they evaluate creative and strategic output, how they manage commercial negotiations, and how they have ended agency relationships that were not delivering.

Leadership track record: The Marketing Director manages a team — often a team with significant specialist diversity, covering brand, digital, content, events, and data. Ask about specific situations where they have had to develop team capability, manage underperformance, or restructure the team to meet changing commercial priorities. Marketing teams in growing businesses frequently need significant development alongside management.

How We Assess Marketing Leaders

Marketing CVs are easy to make impressive and hard to verify. Budgets get rounded up, team results get claimed as personal ones, and growth that came from a strong product or a rising market gets credited to campaigns. Our assessment is built to separate what a candidate did from what happened around them. We look at six areas, weighted to your brief:

Commercial results

We ask for the numbers behind every headline claim — revenue or pipeline attributed to marketing, cost per acquisition, retention — and for the starting point, so we can see the change the candidate made rather than the size of the business they worked in. We also ask what did not work and what they stopped, which tells you more about judgement than a list of successes.

Attribution and data

A good Marketing Director can explain how they knew which activity was working, and the limits of that knowledge. We test whether candidates understand the attribution model their numbers came from, how they reconciled marketing’s figures with finance and sales, and how they handled the loss of tracking data as privacy rules and browser changes have reduced what can be measured. Candidates who quote attributed revenue with no caveats are a warning sign; so are candidates who say marketing cannot be measured.

Brand

Brand work is harder to quantify but easy to probe. We ask candidates to explain a positioning decision they made, what evidence it was based on, how they kept the brand consistent across a sales team, agencies and channels, and how they would judge whether your current brand is helping or hindering sales. For consumer roles we look for evidence of brand-building over years, not just launches.

Digital and performance

We check that the candidate’s channel experience matches the channels that matter to you, and that they can manage specialists and agencies in those channels without being one themselves. That means being able to read a paid media account, challenge an SEO plan, question a conversion rate and decide where the next pound of budget goes. For below-director digital roles, our digital marketing recruitment team can help build the team underneath.

AI tools

Generative AI is now part of how marketing teams produce content, analyse data and run campaigns. We do not look for enthusiasm; we look for judgement. We ask candidates where AI tools have genuinely saved time or improved results in their teams, where they have chosen not to use them, how they control quality, accuracy and brand voice, and how they handle data protection and, in regulated businesses, compliance sign-off for AI-assisted material.

Team

We look at the teams candidates have built, not just the ones they inherited: who they hired, who they moved on, how their people progressed, and whether former team members would work for them again. Referencing for Marketing Director roles includes former direct reports and, where possible, a sales or finance peer — the people best placed to say whether marketing’s numbers were trusted.

You can use the same framework at interview. Our guide to hiring a Marketing Director includes interview questions and a step-by-step hiring plan.

Marketing Director Recruitment by Sector

The right Marketing Director looks very different depending on what the business sells, who buys it and how tightly the marketing is regulated. These are the contexts we see most often.

B2B Industrial and Manufacturing

Marketing in industrial, engineering and manufacturing businesses supports long, technical sales cycles, often through distributors and specialist sales engineers. The Marketing Director needs to understand the product well enough to write credibly for engineers and procurement teams, run trade shows and technical content that earn a hearing, support channel partners, and bring digital lead generation to a sales culture that may be built on relationships. Many of these businesses are hiring their first Marketing Director, so the ability to build from a low base matters. See our manufacturing executive recruitment service.

Technology and SaaS

Technology businesses — particularly those in the Series A to Series C stage — need Marketing Directors who understand product-led growth, developer or enterprise buyer journeys, and the content and community programmes that build category authority in technology markets. The combination of demand generation expertise, product marketing capability, and commercial orientation is relatively rare and commands a premium. For broader technology leadership hiring, see our guide to hiring senior executives for tech and SaaS.

Financial Services

Marketing in FCA-regulated businesses operates under specific constraints — financial promotions must be approved, claims must be substantiated, and the compliance relationship between the marketing function and the legal and compliance team is ongoing and consequential. A Marketing Director in financial services needs to understand these constraints and have the experience to operate creatively within them rather than treating compliance as an obstacle. The FCA’s financial promotions guidance is the primary regulatory reference for UK financial services marketers.

The FCA requires promotions to be clear, fair and not misleading, whatever the medium, and it has published specific guidance on social media promotions (FG24/1) and cryptoasset promotions (FG23/3). Since 7 February 2024, an authorised firm that wants to approve promotions for unauthorised businesses has needed the FCA’s permission to do so under the financial promotions gateway. The Consumer Duty adds a further test: whether customers can actually understand what they are being sold. In practice this means a Marketing Director in a regulated firm works closely with the compliance function, usually the SMF16 compliance oversight holder, who signs off promotions. Many smaller firms fill that role on a fractional basis; our Head of Compliance recruitment service covers fractional and permanent SMF16 appointments, and our financial services executive search page covers senior hiring across the sector.

Professional Services

Marketing in law firms, accountancy practices, consultancies, and engineering firms is heavily relationship-driven — brand reputation, thought leadership, and partner/director relationships are the primary commercial assets. A Marketing Director in professional services needs to understand how to build and deploy those assets without undermining the professional culture, and how to measure return on marketing investment in an environment where the sales cycle is long and the attribution is complex. Our professional services executive hiring guide covers the wider leadership picture in the sector.

Consumer Brands and Retail

Consumer-facing Marketing Directors need category management expertise, retailer relationship management capability (for businesses selling through third-party retail), and deep understanding of consumer insight research and the connection between brand investment and purchase behaviour. The IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising) publishes extensive research on the commercial effectiveness of brand investment that is directly relevant to Marketing Director appointments in consumer businesses. Consumer marketing is also closely regulated through the advertising codes enforced by the Advertising Standards Authority, and through direct marketing rules overseen by the ICO, so candidates should be able to show they have run campaigns that stayed on the right side of both.

Exec Capital’s Marketing Director Search Process

1. Brief and scoping: We work with the CEO or MD to define the commercial model, the specific marketing challenges the new appointment will need to solve, the team they will inherit, the budget they will manage, and the personal characteristics that will work in the specific culture. We ask specifically about the balance between B2B and B2C, the relative importance of digital vs offline, and the degree to which the role is building vs managing — because these determine the candidate profile more than title or seniority.
2. Candidate identification: We draw on our Marketing Director network — placements we have made, candidates we have assessed, and targeted referrals from our wider C-suite network. For sector-specific searches, we conduct targeted market mapping to identify the individuals with the most relevant backgrounds.
3. Assessment: We assess all candidates against the specific brief — probing commercial impact, channel expertise, leadership track record, and cultural fit. Marketing CVs are particularly susceptible to inflation of campaign results and budget management figures; we probe specifically for the underlying evidence behind headline claims.
4. Shortlist and selection: We present two to four candidates with full briefing notes and support the interview and selection process, including structured reference conversations and market rate guidance.

Engagement and Fees Structure

How a search is paid for shapes how it is run, so it is worth being clear about the options before you start.

• Retained search is how we run permanent Marketing Director appointments. The fee is agreed at the outset and paid in stages through the search, which commits us to a full market search, a written shortlist and support through to offer — rather than simply forwarding CVs from people already looking.
• Contingent recruitment, where a fee is paid only if a hire is made, can suit less senior marketing roles where the candidate market is active and the brief is straightforward. For a director-level hire, where the best candidates are usually not job-hunting, it rarely produces the same depth of shortlist.
• Interim and fractional appointments are charged on a day-rate basis for the days worked, with no separate search fee for the client to budget.
• What is included in a retained search: the briefing session, a written brief, market mapping and approaches, first-round interviews and written assessments, interview design, referencing, offer and package advice, and contact through the notice period and early months in role.

Our retained vs contingent executive search guide explains the difference in more detail. We confirm our terms in writing before any search begins.

Who We Place Marketing Directors For

Our Marketing Director clients are mostly businesses where marketing has to prove its worth in revenue terms. Typically they are:

• Owner-managed and founder-led SMEs hiring their first senior marketing leader.
• Private equity-backed businesses building a management team for a growth plan or exit.
• Venture-funded technology and SaaS companies moving from founder-led sales to a repeatable marketing engine.
• Mid-market B2B businesses in manufacturing, engineering, distribution and business services.
• Professional services firms professionalising their marketing and business development.
• Consumer, retail and e-commerce brands balancing brand building with performance marketing.
• FCA-regulated firms, including lenders, brokers, wealth managers and fintechs, that need marketing leaders who understand financial promotions.

We place Marketing Directors across the UK, on-site, hybrid and remote. For marketing roles below director level, our marketing recruitment agency service covers Heads of Marketing and specialist team hires, and where marketing and sales leadership need to be combined in one role, our Commercial Director recruitment service is usually the better fit.

Are you a marketing leader looking for your next role? This page is written for employers, but we are always glad to hear from experienced Marketing Directors and CMOs. Please register with us and see our current opportunities.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much should a Marketing Director be paid in the UK?

The ONS’s 2026 provisional earnings survey puts median full-time pay for marketing, sales and advertising directors at around £96,400 a year, but that figure covers businesses of every size and combines marketing with sales roles. Actual packages depend on the size of the budget and team, the sector, executive team membership and whether there is a bonus or equity element. Exec Capital provides market rate guidance as part of every search brief — call 0203 834 9616 to discuss.

Should the Marketing Director sit on the executive team?

For businesses where marketing is a primary commercial driver — where lead generation, brand, or customer acquisition are central to the revenue model — yes. The Marketing Director needs access to strategic discussions in real time in order to allocate resource to the right priorities and ensure marketing strategy stays aligned with commercial intent. For businesses where marketing is a supporting function with limited strategic impact, the Marketing Director may report to the CEO without sitting on the executive team, but this is increasingly uncommon in growth-stage businesses.

How do we assess a Marketing Director’s commercial credibility?

The most reliable assessment combines quantified outcome questions — what revenue did your marketing programmes generate; what was the cost per qualified lead; how did the pipeline contribution from marketing change during your tenure — with scenario-based discussions around how the candidate would approach the specific commercial challenges your business is facing. Candidates who consistently talk in marketing outputs (impressions, engagement, campaign awards) rather than commercial outcomes (revenue, pipeline, customer acquisition cost) are signalling a mindset that will not generate the board-level credibility the role requires.

What is the difference between a Marketing Director and a Brand Director?

A Brand Director is typically a specialist role focused on brand strategy, brand architecture, and creative standards — without accountability for the full commercial marketing function. A Marketing Director has end-to-end accountability for marketing strategy and commercial delivery, with brand being one component of that. In most businesses, the Marketing Director role encompasses brand; a standalone Brand Director is more common in large consumer businesses with significant brand portfolio complexity.

What does a marketing director recruitment agency do that we cannot do ourselves?

Most strong Marketing Directors are not applying for jobs. A specialist recruitment agency or headhunter approaches people who are succeeding in comparable roles, tests their claims before you meet them, and manages the process discreetly — which matters when you are replacing someone, or when candidates would not want their employer to know they are talking. We also bring a view on the market: what candidates expect, which profiles are scarce, and whether your brief is realistic.

Why use Marketing Director headhunters rather than advertising the role?

Advertising reaches people who are actively looking, which at director level is a small part of the market. Headhunting reaches the much larger group who are open to the right move but not searching. Advertising can still have a place alongside a search, and we will advise on whether it is worth doing for your role.

How long does it take to recruit a Marketing Director?

We agree the timetable with you at briefing rather than promising one in advance. The search itself depends on how specialist the brief is and how quickly interviews can be scheduled; the largest variable is usually the chosen candidate’s notice period. If the role cannot stay empty that long, an interim Marketing Director can cover the gap.

Do you recruit Marketing Directors for FCA-regulated firms?

Yes. Marketing Directors in regulated firms need to work within the FCA’s financial promotions rules and the Consumer Duty, and alongside the compliance function that signs off promotions. A Marketing Director is not usually a senior manager function under the Senior Managers and Certification Regime, but the compliance oversight role they work with is. We can recruit both, including fractional SMF16 and SMF17 appointments for smaller firms.

Should we hire a fractional Marketing Director before a permanent one?

Often, yes — particularly if there is no marketing team yet, the budget is small, or the board has not agreed what marketing is for. A fractional leader can set the strategy, prove the case for investment and help define the permanent role. If you already have a team, a budget and a clear growth plan, a permanent hire is usually the better use of money.

What should a new Marketing Director deliver in the first 90 days?

An audit of spend, channels, team and agencies; an agreed definition of a qualified lead with sales; a short list of board measures; a twelve-month plan and budget signed off by the CEO and CFO; and two or three visible early improvements. Revenue impact usually takes longer, so the first 90 days should be judged on diagnosis and plan quality.

Recruit a Marketing Director — Permanent, Interim or Fractional

Exec Capital places Marketing Directors for UK businesses at every stage of growth. We have an active network of marketing leadership candidates — including B2B demand generation specialists, digital-first growth marketers, brand leaders, and PE-backed commercial marketers. Every search is run by our specialist team, with Adrian Lawrence FCA overseeing each mandate.

• Permanent search: retained search, with the timetable agreed at briefing.
• Interim placement: experienced interim Marketing Directors for gaps, transformations and transactions.
• Fractional option: part-time Marketing Director for businesses not yet needing full-time marketing leadership.

Sources and Further Reading

• Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) — Chartered Marketer status and professional standards for marketing leaders
• ONS — Earnings and hours worked, occupation by four-digit SOC: ASHE Table 14
• IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising) — research on marketing effectiveness and brand investment
• FCA — Financial promotions guidance for regulated businesses
• ICO — Direct marketing compliance guidance (PECR and UK GDPR)
• Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) — UK advertising standards and compliance
• HMRC — IR35 off-payroll working rules for interim marketing engagements

Pay data on this page is taken from the ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings 2026 provisional results and is indicative only. Actual compensation is agreed on a per-engagement basis. Contact our team for specific market rate guidance.