We have seen several clients reach our recently as we race towards year end. As UK consumer goods and FMCG businesses prepare for upcoming salary reviews, the context in which these decisions are being made has shifted materially. Talent availability, wage growth and candidate behaviour are no longer moving in unison across functions. Instead, the market has become far more nuanced, with pay progression increasingly dictated by demand, scarcity and commercial impact.
Below, we outline some key themes that we are seeing across the UK consumer market that should inform salary review discussions and workforce planning decisions.
UK consumer goods wage growth is now role-specific
Wage growth in the consumer goods sector is no longer broad-based. Salary inflation has become highly role-specific and is being driven almost entirely by demand rather than market sentiment.
The most notable upward pressure continues to sit within:
- Sales
- Category Management and Revenue Growth Management
- Commercial Finance
- Digital and E-commerce
- Supply Chain and Procurement, particularly within Food and QSR
In these areas, resilience, risk management, channel complexity and direct proximity to revenue have elevated the strategic importance of the roles, resulting in sustained competition for talent and continued salary movement.
By contrast, functions with less direct commercial leverage are experiencing far flatter salary conditions, even at senior levels.
Marketing salaries in UK FMCG remain flat amid surplus senior talent
Marketing continues to be the most stable and (in some cases) oversupplied area of the market. There is a noticeable pool of senior marketers currently available, driven by reduced budgets within challenger brands and significant consolidation across larger consumer businesses.
Many CPG organisations have undergone restructures, mergers, acquisitions or pre-sale headcount reductions to optimise EBITDA. As a result, we are seeing a higher-than-normal volume of senior marketing talent at the £100k+ level, with not enough jobs, which is alarming and we are doing our best to help support and advise these candidates during these transitions.
Hiring businesses are therefore becoming increasingly selective and are less willing to stretch on salary unless candidates can clearly demonstrate strong commercial, digital or growth-led capability beyond traditional brand marketing.
Sales roles continue to drive salary inflation in UK consumer goods
Sales roles tell a very different story. Across all core channels; Grocery and Discounters, Impulse, Wholesale and Foodservice, competition for high-quality talent remains intense.
This is particularly evident at mid-management level (£60k–£100k), where individuals are now expected to manage increasingly complex customer relationships, multiple routes to market and deliver immediate commercial growth and returns.
Ongoing scarcity at this level is sustaining upward pressure on salaries, despite wider market volatility. Candidates are also far more informed about their market value, contributing to a more competitive and transparent hiring environment.
Early-career talent shortages are increasing salary pressure
A more structural challenge is emerging at early-career level. Graduate and apprenticeship intakes were significantly reduced during the COVID period (2020–21), and many high-calibre graduates have since opted for better-paid sectors such as Technology, Finance and Consultancy.
This has created a thinner talent pipeline at the 2–5-year experience level. As a result, businesses are increasingly forced to recruit externally earlier than planned and at higher cost, which is adding further salary pressure at mid-management level.
Organisations with strong development pathways, commercial exposure and long-term progression plans are better positioned to attract and retain this emerging talent.
Recruitment market noise is increasing, but value-led hiring still matters
Finally, while there is more noise in the recruitment market than ever, driven by a growing number of agencies and new entrants – hiring businesses are becoming increasingly price sensitive.
That said, organisations remain willing to invest when the focus is on securing high-quality passive talent rather than running purely transactional hiring processes. Messaging, leadership credibility, cultural alignment, and the long-term journey of the business now play a far greater role in attracting individuals who can elevate and lead a function, rather than simply fill a role.
What this means for your salary reviews!
For Managing Directors, Founders, PE backers and senior leadership teams, upcoming salary reviews should be viewed as a strategic lever rather than a purely operational exercise.
In the current UK consumer goods market, this means:
- Avoiding blanket salary increases and instead taking a targeted, role-specific approach aligned to where demand, scarcity and commercial impact genuinely sit.
- Proactively managing retention risk in Sales, Commercial, Digital, Supply Chain and Procurement roles, particularly at mid-management level where external demand remains strongest.
- Differentiating critical talent, using a combination of salary, incentives, progression and long-term value creation rather than relying on base pay alone.
- Balancing short-term cost control with long-term capability, particularly in PE-backed or growth-led environments where leadership depth and execution capability directly influence value creation.
- Pressure-testing salary decisions against the external market, not just internal parity, to avoid unplanned attrition or reactive counter-offers later in the year
For organisations that get this right, salary reviews become a tool to protect momentum, retain high-impact performers, and underpin sustainable growth. For those that do not, they increasingly represent a hidden risk to performance, continuity and future valuation.
If you would like to sense-check your salary review strategy against current UK consumer goods market conditions, or discuss how these trends may impact your leadership and talent plans, we would be happy to share further insight.