We Analyzed 8,000 Content Marketing Job Listings: The Shift from Writing to Ownership

In 2026, companies aren’t just hiring content marketers to write blog posts or manage calendars. 

They want them to own visibility across search, AI-driven discovery, and storytelling—and to prove impact.

To understand how the content marketing profession is shifting, we analyzed 8,000 content marketing job listings across the US.

We looked at job titles, skills, responsibilities, salaries, degree requirements, and AI expectations—and explored the top trends for this year.

Methodology 

To understand the trajectory of the 2026 job market, we analyzed 8,000 content marketing job listings from Indeed.com (US) as of November 25, 2025.

Here’s how we approached it:

• Data collection and cleaning: Because many roles appeared under multiple job titles (e.g., a “Content Manager” listing also showing up in “Content Strategist” results), we deduplicated overlapping postings and normalized roles by job function, resulting in a final dataset of 8,000 unique listings. 
• Segmentation by seniority: We categorized the market into two distinct groups—Senior Positions (including Head, Director, VP, Chief, Lead, and Executive roles) and Other Positions—to compare requirements across career stages.
• Semantic extraction: We analyzed the raw text of each listing to identify the frequency of specific marketing skills, educational requirements, and emerging AI-related keywords.
• Trend analysis: We also compared our findings to 2023 data from our previous study to see how requirements have shifted over the last three years.

Key Findings

Across current job listings, employers increasingly describe content roles in terms of analytics, narrative building, AI literacy, SEO, and measurable outcomes. 

Here’s a quick snapshot of our findings: 

• Execution-heavy roles now make up 34% of listings, while demand for mid-level generalist titles dropped by 70%+ since 2023; at the same time, senior ownership roles (Head / VP of Content) grew by 300–375%.
• Analytics appears in 40% of senior roles and 36% of non-senior roles, while storytelling follows closely at 29% and 27%, reflecting higher expectations around measurement, narrative control, and business impact.
• “Content creation” is replacing “writing” as the primary execution skill: mentions of writing fell by 28% since 2023, while content creation requirements increased by 209%, potentially reflecting demand for multi-format output.
• Salaries increased across the market: median pay reached $161,500 for senior roles (+54%) and $80,000 for non-senior roles (+29%), with maximum salaries rising sharply at both levels.

• AI is becoming a baseline expectation rather than a specialization: 34% of senior roles and 19% of non-senior roles mention AI, but highly specific skills (prompt engineering, AI content creation) still appear in <1% of listings.

Let’s explore what the data says.

1. The Content Marketing Job Market Has Split Into Two Extremes

Content marketing roles in 2026 are clustering around execution and senior ownership:

• The "Content SEO Manager" has become a top-tier title: Titles combining content ownership and SEO now account for 20% of all listings—matching “Content Creator” for the highest volume in the study. This signals a clear shift toward roles that sit at the intersection of content production, search performance, and AI-driven discovery.
• Hands-on content roles are seeing the highest growth: "Content Producer" listings increased by 1,261% and "Content Creator" listings rose by 410%, making these two roles a combined 34% of the total market we analyzed. 
• Senior leadership demand is expanding rapidly: Postings for "Head of Content Marketing" grew by 376% and "VP of Content" by 308%. This means there is a growing demand for high-level executives to own the entire content department—and most likely oversee AI workflows.
• Mid-level roles remain common but show the steepest decline in new demand: "Content Marketing Manager" is still the third most frequent title (14% of listings), but new job postings for this role dropped by 73% compared to 2023. Similarly, "Content Marketing Specialist" listings fell by 74%, suggesting that companies may be slowly moving away from such generalist titles.

2. Analytics and Storytelling Become Primary Requirements Across All Levels

Data literacy and narrative skills are now the top-tier requirements for content professionals:

• Analytics is the #1 requested skill for senior positions: Analytics—the ability to collect and interpret data—appears in 40% of leadership listings and 36% of other positions. This indicates that companies prioritize content marketers who can make data-driven decisions.
• Storytelling has surged to become a top-three requirement for senior content roles. Narrative expertise now appears in 29% of senior postings—up from just 8% in 2023—signaling a growing expectation that content leaders own messaging, positioning, and narrative direction. Especially as AI-generated content is becoming more common.
• Execution roles show a pivot toward "Content Creation" over pure "Writing": When comparing the data to our 2023 findings, we saw that the requirement for "Writing" fell by 28% in execution-level roles, while "Content Creation" rose by 209%. This suggests that employers are looking for multimedia creators who can produce content across various formats.
• SEO is now a standard requirement for content marketing roles: SEO appears in 20% of senior listings and 28% of non-senior roles, showing that search knowledge is no longer limited to specialists but expected across many content positions.

3. Data Analysis and Narrative Strategy Become the Core of Content Work

The distribution of responsibilities in content marketing job listings is aligned with the key marketing skills, focusing on performance analysis, PR, and storytelling:

• Data collection and analysis is the most frequent responsibility for senior content roles: This responsibility appears in 42% of senior listings, representing a 369% increase since 2023. For non-senior positions, it grew by 818%—appearing in 37% of job listings. 
• Workflow automation has emerged as a codified requirement: "Automate workflows" is now explicitly listed as a responsibility in 13-17% of all content roles. 
• The "Follow Industry Trends" requirement has skyrocketed for non-senior roles: Based on our comparison with 2023 data, this task grew by 766% for execution roles.

4. AI Literacy is a Growing Requirement for Content Marketing Roles

AI proficiency is quickly becoming a core expectation for content professionals, with 34% of senior job listings and nearly 20% of execution-level roles mentioning “AI.”

Mentions of LLM and general AI familiarity also appear in 7% of senior roles and 5% of non-senior roles.

The data also reveals emerging specialized categories:

• AI Search & SEO 2.0: Listings mentioning SGE, AEO, or AI Search account for 2% of senior roles and 1.5% of others. This reflects the push to adapt content for AI search.
• AI content creation: While currently a smaller percentage (0.8% and 0.6% respectively), the inclusion of this skill shows that AI-assisted content production is becoming part of content marketing work.
• Prompt engineering: Though often discussed as a "job of the future," it currently appears in less than 0.5% of listings. This may indicate prompt engineering hasn’t been formalized as a standalone requirement yet.

5. Technical Degrees Rise as Traditional Liberal Arts Requirements Fade

The educational background required for content roles is shifting away from traditional liberal arts toward more technical and business-oriented degrees:

• Senior roles are pivoting toward business and ROI-focused backgrounds: "Business" is now the #2 most requested degree for senior positions (14.6%), followed closely by "Communication" (13.6%). 
• The demand for traditional "writing-heavy" degrees is declining: Requirements for "English" degrees fell by 47% for executive roles, while "Journalism" saw a 37% drop compared to 2023. 
• Senior content roles are increasingly intersecting with technical domains. While Computer Science degrees still appear in only 7% of leadership listings, their 400% increase since 2023 points to rising demand for technical fluency alongside traditional content leadership skills.

6. Content Marketing Salaries Surge as Strategic Value Increases

Since 2023, compensation for content professionals has increased across all levels:

• Content marketing salaries rose sharply across both senior and non-senior roles. Since 2023, median pay has increased by 54% for senior positions and 29% for other roles, reflecting higher baseline compensation as content work takes on more strategic responsibility.
• Executive compensation is reaching record highs: While the maximum reached $840,000, likely reflecting equity or global scope, the median of $161,500 better represents typical senior compensation.

7. Remote Work Options Grow Across Content Roles

Remote work options have grown steadily since 2023, while the majority of content marketing roles remain in-house. About 31% of senior and non-senior positions are now advertised as remote, up from roughly 24% in 2023.

• Remote work listings now account for nearly one-third of the market: Remote options represent 31% of senior roles and 32% of other roles. 
• In-house roles remain the primary format but show lower growth: While roughly 69% of listings are for in-house positions, these grew by only 3% since 2023. 
• Senior roles are increasingly advertised as remote: The 25% increase in remote senior listings shows that high-level management and strategic roles are being offered with flexible location options more frequently.

The Content Marketing Career: Practical Takeaways

In 2026, content marketers aren’t evaluated on output alone. They’re expected to own discovery, drive results, and understand performance.

Here’s what this means in practice:

• Expand your skills beyond content creation into SEO and AI-driven search. Because many teams expect content marketers to own whether content gets seen, candidates should build a working knowledge of SEO fundamentals and how AI search surfaces content.

• Show how your work drives outcomes. Job listings increasingly reference performance, visibility, and impact. Be ready to explain what your content achieved with metrics like rankings, traffic, conversions, etc.

• Position storytelling as a business skill. Narrative work shows up alongside responsibilities like PR, positioning, and strategy. Frame your writing and creative skills in terms of brand influence and decision-making.

• Acknowledge AI explicitly in your experience. Because “AI” now appears a lot more often in content marketing job descriptions, candidates who mention how they’ve worked alongside AI tools (even at a high level) remove ambiguity for hiring teams.

• Be clear about the scope you can own. Many roles combine execution, analysis, and coordination. Define whether you’re strongest at leading direction, producing at scale, or owning projects end to end—and show proof.

Taken together, these changes point to a content role that’s less about output alone and more about ownership. 

Semrush is built for this reality, helping marketers manage content, SEO, and AI visibility with data they can act on.