First of all, for those of you that don’t know me, let me explain a little bit about myself and who I am. I’ve been employed at RedCat as a Content and Editorial Consultant since November 2016 and as my job title suggests I predominantly focus on content and editorial positions, but with a particular focus on branded content and content marketing. Of course, here’s the obligatory disclaimer that these are my opinions and there are definitely going to be exceptions to the rule.
What salary can I expect dependent on my experience?
In my time at RedCat I’ve come to learn that salary expectations vary quite considerably when you’re working within editorial compared to any other vertical that we cover here. When you’re working in editorial there’s a strong chance that you’ve more than likely freelanced as a writer for a period of time. You can work for 5 or 6 years writing content for some of the best publications in London and then make a move into an editorial position; I would say on average you’d be looking around the £35k mark. If you came straight out of Uni and have been working for a major publication or an agency which have a content offering, you can expect your salary to be around the £45k – £50k mark.
Do sectors make a difference?
Of course, different sectors make a difference. I’m sure that there’s a lot of people out there that love sport so much that they’d write and produce content for free almost. If you could get paid to create content about an industry that you’re passionate about then why wouldn’t you take that opportunity? There’s a famous quote, “do what you love and you’ll never work another day in your life,” which has definitely had a lot of an effect on people within this industry. There are people that work within the Fashion industry that will spend 4 – 5 years at University, getting a degree in a fashion related subject, then will complete a Masters or post-grad, but will then struggle to get work and end up interning for several years until they finally get employed on a low salary. The difficult thing is that there’s so much interest in writing in areas like sport and fashion that employers can afford to keep their salaries low because people are so passionate about those subjects.
What do I look for on a CV?
I’d like to say this would be mostly the same for all recruiters, but I can’t speak for everyone, so please feel free to let me know differently if you disagree.
The first thing I look at is the current company someone is working for and what position they hold there. If it’s a well-known company, I need to think about the size of the content offering they have there and the potential size of the team. This can be a huge indication of salary expectations and worth of an individual. If you’re a Managing Editor for a leading publication the chances are that, along with maybe one senior member of staff, the Editor in Chief or Director, you’ll have a big say about what content gets put out there and take huge responsibility for the direction your company wants to go in depending on the content you produce. You could potentially be managing 10 – 15 members of staff but commissioning content out to 100+ freelancers with around 10 – 15 years’ experience and a salary between £60 – £80k. It’s definitely possible to be in a position like this without this amount of experience, but from my experience, the likelihood is that the content output is greatly reduced, the team will be smaller and the salary won’t be as high.
I am aware that this is a very brief overview of the industry as a whole, and for me to go through every type of position within every industry is going to take a lot more than a few paragraphs. As I mentioned, salary does fluctuate a lot within this industry, but if you’re curious to see what salary you’re worth please feel free to get in touch and I’ll be able to add some insight into that, and who knows, maybe give you some advice about finding your next position.
Written by Tom Crawford, Consultant – Content and Editorial
LinkedIn: Tom Crawford / RedCat Digital
Twitter: @Tom_RedCat / @RedCat_Digital
Facebook: RedCat Digital
Google+: RedCat Digital
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