RDP Marketing and its partners – AgriTrade News, Anthology, Cultura Connect, MorePeople – share the first interim findings from the 2026 Agri Sales & Marketing Salary Survey, revealing where agri is closing the pay gap with the wider economy, and where it isn’t.
Last month, we set out why agri sales and marketing needed its own salary benchmark, separate from the wider career surveys it usually gets folded into. The first responses are in, and they’re already telling us something the sector needs to hear.
Where the gap is closing, and where it isn’t
Commercial professionals earlier in their careers are already earning in line with, or ahead of, the wider UK economy. That’s a genuine shift for a sector that’s long struggled to shake off a reputation for underpaying its talent, and it should make agri a more credible option for people early in their careers.
The story changes further up the ladder. Senior leaders, Heads of, and Directors, are trailing equivalent benchmarks in the wider economy by a meaningful margin.
That doesn’t necessarily mean a wave of departures. Agriculture tends to hold onto senior talent; cultural ties, a sense of purpose, and deep networks mean people who’ve built a career in food and farming often stay.
The bigger risk runs the other way. If agri can’t compete on senior pay, it will struggle to pull in outside expertise when needed. And its going to be needed, with AI, geopolitical and economic disruption, and the impact of GLP-1s demanding skills the sector may not have in-house.
Investment is flowing to sales, and marketing is being squeezed
It’s not just pay. Investment follows a similar pattern in our data. Sales teams are growing headcount at a noticeably higher rate than marketing teams, which are largely flat, or being trimmed as AI absorbs execution work.
Agri isn’t unusual here, it’s echoing a wider economic trend. Marketing budgets have fallen sharply as a share of revenue since the pandemic, even as AI marketing investment rises just as sharply, and several bodies tracking the future of work now name marketing among the functions most exposed to near-term automation-driven cuts.
That should give agribusinesses pause, not comfort. Decades of advertising effectiveness research point the same way. Businesses that lean too far into short-term sales activation, at the expense of long-term brand building, tend to win in the short run but lose market share, pricing power and growth over several years.
Agri marketing is ahead on AI, not behind
There’s a third pattern in the data, and it cuts against expectations too. Agri commercial professionals are using AI tools daily at a higher rate than their peers in other sectors.
What’s more interesting than the volume of use is where it’s heading. Early adoption largely focused on writing and high-level research. But increasingly, it’s showing up in research and strategic planning too, work that shapes decisions rather than just producing words. That’s a more significant shift than the daily-use figures alone suggest.
The more useful question now isn’t whether agri commercial teams are using AI. It’s whether they’re using it well, and where the gaps are. That’s exactly what RDP’s AI for Marketing Readiness Assessment was built to answer, helping agribusinesses identify where AI is creating a real commercial advantage, and where it isn’t yet.
Help us finish the picture
These are early signals, not the final report, and the picture is far from complete. The more people who take part, the more accurate and useful the final benchmark will be.
It takes under ten minutes, every response stays confidential and is reported only in aggregate, and every participant receives a free copy of the full report plus access to the interactive benchmarking tool once it’s live. Take part today, and help make sure agri’s senior leaders are represented as clearly as the talent coming up behind them.
