Content Director Salary in 2023

We analyzed over 500 content marketers' salaries, job titles, and demographic information to create The Content Marketing Salary Report (Updated for 2023). Of those 500 respondents, 61 people had the title "Content Marketing Director" or similar. By looking at the salary data by job title, we were able to find the average content director salary according to gender, years of experience, and industry.

Accurate salary data helps improve the content marketing industry as a whole. If you're using content manager salaries as an employee, you can benchmark your pay. If you're an employer, you can ensure you're paying equally across demographics. Finally, you can make data-backed decisions about your career as a content marketer, such as whether to work for B2B or B2C businesses.

The average content director earns $128,131

This is the average base salary for anyone with the job title of "Director of Content" or similar. This accounts for both full-time and freelance folks with this title, meaning someone could be a full-time content director of a company and earn additional income from freelancing.

The average content marketer earns $95,379 ↗

For more context, the average income of a content marketer has risen by 1.77% in the last year, a small but still meaningful increase. This is a positive sign in the midst of uncertainty, as the job market has been tough during the past 12 months.

This data includes all income from all sources, regardless of experience, employment status, gender or ethnicity, meaning that a person could make 90% of their income from a full-time job while supplementing some of their income with some freelance work. Conversely, someone could make 50% of their income from full-time work and 50% from freelance work. All of these variables are included in the average number.

How much money do content directors make?

So, how much do content marketing directors earn?

To give a clearer picture of average salary ranges, here’s a breakdown of the count of respondents by salary range. It's important to note that these are global averages with some of the respondents coming from lower cost-of-living countries.

The majority of content directors in our survey earn between $100,000 and $119,000 per year, and the next biggest salary band is people earning between $80,000 and $99,000 each year.

For your comparison, here are the most common salary bands for the other job titles in this study:

• Content Marketing Manager - $60,000 and $79,000 per year
• Content Strategist - $80,000 and $99,000 per year
• Head of Content - $100,000 and $119,000 per year

Do years of experience translate to higher income? (Spoiler: yes)

Average income can only tell us so much—knowing how salary increases with experience is helpful to know what to expect if you stay in the industry. In general, folks with four or more years of experience are in the $100k Club. This data includes income from any source and does not delineate between full-time and freelance.

• 0 to 3 years - $72,667
• 4 to 7 years - $104,597
• 8 to 12 years - $137,933
• 13+ years - $189,556

B2B content directors earn $26,477 more per year than B2C content directors

Interestingly, B2B content directors earned significantly more than their B2C/DTC peers. In the larger salary report, B2B content marketers also earned more on average ($97,118) than B2C content marketers ($88,421).

• B2B - $122,237
• B2C/DTC - $148,714
• Other - $145,000

It’s worth noting there were many more B2B directors (47) who responded as content directors than B2C folks (11) which could explain the discrepancy. It’s a smaller sample size and one that we’re not quite as confident about. Still, this data suggests you'll receive a higher salary as a B2B content director, potentially because B2B buyer journeys tend to be more complex.

Female content directors make $27,858 more per year than male content directors

Usually male content marketers earn slightly more than women, but in this case, the opposite is true. Since this was a smaller sample size, we’re not quite as confident about the results. There were more women (36) who responded as content strategists than males (21) which could explain the data being skewed in this way.

We asked respondents which gender they currently identify as. We left the field open for folks to respond however they like (i.e. not a dropdown). While the larger salary report shows income disparity by gender has improved over the years, we still clearly have work to do when it comes to income equality.

For your comparison, here are the average differences in salary by gender for the other job titles in this study:

• Male content marketing managers make $6,239 more per year than female CMMs.
• Female content strategists make $25,258 more per year than male content strategists.
• Male heads of content make $37,121 more per year than female heads of content.

It's time to act

Knowledge is power. When you know the average content director's salary, you're better equipped to negotiate your salary at your next job or ask for a raise at your current one.

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