The Prosperity Recruitment Employment and Salary Survey for 2022

Prosperity Recruitment’s annual report for 2022 looks at how the digital sector in Ireland adapted to the multiple challenges and changes caused by Covid-19 and its effect on workers” salaries going into the new year.

Coinciding with the removal of government restrictions and the improved economic outlook, the second half of 2021 saw a big rebound in hiring as businesses adapted to new ways of working, altered priorities and new opportunities.
 
As the market became more dynamic and workers began to gain the confidence to seek elsewhere for jobs and change careers as part of the “Great Reshuffle“, qualified and experienced candidates in the digital sector became scarcer, leading companies to react with better salaries, conditions and career development to both retain existing employees and capture new talent.  

With the market on their side going into 2022, skilled and experienced workers in the digital sector are likely to command higher salaries and more flexible conditions than in 2021 as demand remains high for these talented professionals.

Prosperity Recruitment’s Director Gary Mullan is confident about the outlook for 2022:  
 
“While employers have faced plenty of challenges in 2021, the outlook for Ireland’s digital economy is still very positive. We hope our insights can help companies attract and engage with employees for an even better 2022.”

Key findings:

• Salaries will see a general uptick of 12% for 2022. Interviews with CEOs and hiring managers in the digital sector suggest that many companies have felt compelled to increase salaries in 2021 to both retain existing talent and attract new staff, and this is a trend that is likely to continue into 2022.
• The highest paid roles are Director of Marketing (up to €150,000), followed by Head of eCommerce, Head of Search/SEO, and Creative Directors (all up to €120,000).
• UX and Product Design will continue to grow fast in 2022, with demand pushing salaries up by 18% for these roles, and many companies are setting up separate departments for this area – meaning experienced professionals in Ireland are becoming increasingly scarce.
• Demand (and salaries) will continue to grow for talent specializing in specific platforms, such as Amazon, HubSpot, Magento, Shopify, WordPress or Salesforce as business moves from Monolithic to a Microservices environment.
• Candidates now expect clarity on working arrangements as a must-have before they even apply for a role. In 2022, the priorities for employees will be a flexible approach to office work, career progression, work-life balance and even sustainability.
• Nearshoring will become more widespread as a solution to worker shortages. The pressures of covering a broad base in SMEs have seen workers with broad digital marketing skills jump ship to larger companies to specialize, leaving the smaller companies with big gaps in their teams, having to resort to hybrid models, outsourcing and especially nearshoring.
• In 2022 many large Irish companies will realise the benefits of building an in-house marketing team, fuelling strong growth in both technical and strategic marketing roles. 
• At the other end of the spectrum, SMEs are still growing strongly, but are hamstrung by resources, meaning digital professionals are needed to cover more bases such as content, SEO and PPC management, as well as overall strategy and execution