Mapping an Emerging Profession: Roles, Pay, and Careers in Social Intelligence

The two most-asked questions we get at the SI Lab are: What job titles do other social intelligence professionals use? And, how much do they earn? In established disciplines, those answers are easy to find, but in social intelligence related roles they are harder to find.

Social and internet data analysis can offer insight into so many use cases and areas of business, the types of people who work in this field and the roles they hold are incredibly diverse. Social intelligence spans insight, research, marketing, comms, strategy, innovation, and more. That breadth is its strength, but it also means:

• Job titles vary wildly
• Teams sit in different parts of the organisations
• Responsibilities are unevenly defined
• Pay is difficult to benchmark fairly

To better understand how social intelligence is forming as aprofession, we explored how people working in the field describe their roles,pay, and day-to-day practice. This year’s study is based on responses from 130 social intelligence professionals globally. Therefore it’s worth noting that wecannot call this a benchmark, it is a snapshot of this emerging profession.

Inside the report we examine:

• How social intelligence roles and responsibilities are currently being defined across organisations
• How pay appears to vary by region, seniority, organisation type, and gender
• Whare social intelligence teams tend to sit and how they’re structured
• What career progressions looks like in the absenceof a clear ladder
• How professionals feel about workload, work-lifebalance, and long term sustainability
• How generative AI is beginning to reshapeday-to-day practice and perceived job security