Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash.
Consolidation in the advertising industry is pushing mid-weight and senior creatives into the job market, and opportunities for juniors lessen as AI integration in the workplace becomes standard.
Advertising Council Australia’s 2025 Salary Survey across its member base revealed a redundancy rate of 11%, compared to the usual range of 5–7%.
Thousands of jobs have gone in Omnicom from the takeover of IPG.
Dentsu is cutting 3,400 jobs. About 2,100 are out and the rest are due to go this year.
“We expect this trend to continue in the short term as businesses continue to restructure, but hopefully it begins to stabilise in the second half of 2026,” an ACA spokesperson told AdNews.
Applications per job have hit record highs this year, according to data from SEEK.
Nicholas Cox, founder and creative director at recruiter the People’s Place, told AdNews that the market is fuller for mid-to-senior roles, mostly due to consolidation.
“When agencies merge, leadership shifts and teams compress, people start doing a risk check, even if they’re not directly affected,” Cox said.
“Redundancies are part of the picture. But so is proactive movement. The market right now is being shaped just as much by people opting out of uncertainty as it is by people being cut from roles.
“On the junior end, there are definitely more people looking. The issue is there still aren’t enough genuine training seat roles."
Job uncertainty has caused senior players in the industry to change roles.
DDB Melbourne & Smith St chief creative officer Psembi Kinstan moved to 72andSunny Amsterdam as ECD.
Omnicom media agency UM is searching for a new managing director after making former MD Ben McCallum redundant.
Zaid Al-Qassab stepped down as CEO of M&C Saatchi, less than two years after taking the role.
Fiona Johnston, dentsu’s chief executive officer, client, media and commercial, departed the business following a restructure that has seen her role made redundant.
No Sunday Blues director and co-founder Mikhaila Warburton said that the mergers are causing senior, experienced creative talent out into the market all at once.
“We’re seeing very strong senior talent competing for fewer senior roles, and in some cases even looking at stepping into slightly more hands-on positions like senior designer or design lead,” Warburton said.
“Much of this is a direct result of agency restructuring and cost pressures rather than performance. Creative director roles in particular seem to be most affected as agencies flatten structures or merge leadership teams.”
Cox said the hiring that’s holding is practical, mid org chart, output driven work.
“Midweight creatives who can both concept and execute across brand and social, rather than sitting in a single lane,” he said.
“Content and design talent with production capability. Motion, short form and basic editing are valuable because content volume is high and timelines are tight.
“Strategy roles that connect the work to commercial outcomes and help organisations make faster decisions.
“On the brand side, the demand is clustering around growth and always on channels.
“Growth and performance roles across paid, lifecycle and CRM, where return on spend is being watched closely.
“Social and community roles where the person can actually produce content, not just schedule it. Marketing generalists with strong digital capability, particularly in mid sized businesses that need breadth rather than narrow specialisation.
“AI is quickly becoming a baseline expectation in advertising roles. And skill stack is starting to replace title purity. Businesses are increasingly hiring for mixes of capability rather than neat, traditional job titles.”
Warburton said that mid-weight experiential designers have been in demand despite the talent pool in experiential tend to skew more senior.
“We’re also seeing agencies look for design directors with strong brand strategy capability, as well as marketing and social ‘all-rounders.’ People who can ideate campaign concepts but also execute them across platforms,” she said.
“On the PR and communications side, the market has been relatively steady with account director and senior account manager roles coming up, though largely due to talent movement rather than newly created positions.”
Warburton noted the lower appetite for junior and graduate roles in the industry.
“At the beginning of the year we usually see a slightly higher appetite for junior hires and graduate programs and that cycle is happening again this year,” she said.
“However, the reality is that the number of junior opportunities still falls far short of the number of graduates entering the market.
“It remains one of the biggest structural issues in the creative industry: the gap between emerging talent wanting to enter the sector and the limited pathways available.”
Cox expects 2026 to have learner teams with hybrid briefs, particularly at mid-weight level.
“There will be a continued bias toward doers rather than layers. People who can ship work, not just direct it,” he said.
“AI becoming a normal part of existing roles, across prompting, ideation support, versioning and production acceleration.
“Stronger competition for good roles as candidate supply stays elevated.
“And a widening gap between organisations that genuinely invest in talent development and those that simply hire talent and hope it sticks.”
Warburton said the creative recruitment market tends to pick up from around April through to September once agencies have clearer visibility on pipeline and new client wins.
"I do think we’ll continue to see fewer traditional agency roles advertised overall," Warburton said.
"Brands are increasingly building in-house creative teams, which means the slice of work going to agencies is gradually shrinking.
"What we’re likely to see instead is an increase in long term freelance, project-based and fractional hires, along with more agency talent transitioning brand side or launching independent studios.
"The creative industry has always thrived on the exchange between generations of talent. If we lose both entry points for juniors and space for senior leaders at the same time, we risk weakening the very pipeline that keeps the industry evolving."
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