We are delighted to announce the hiring of Weber Shandwick Vice President Dan Lee to launch our Seattle presence and lead expansion of our services to agencies and corporations throughout the Northwest. Lee brings more than 16 years PR agency experience in the Seattle market with 13 years at Weber Shandwick, one of the world’s top communications and engagement firms.
With Dan’s hiring, PR Talent decided to conduct a review of the Seattle job market and current PR salary levels. Seattle is one of the hottest jobs markets in the country and today has more than 103,000 open positions and a median base salary of $85,000. Only San Jose and San Francisco boast a higher media salary and more open positions. This high demand for talent extends to public relations and social media professionals and has spurred higher salaries in the industry.
PR Talent’s salary review puts Seattle’s PR industry salaries on par with Chicago and just slightly lower than only New York and the Bay Area.
And we expect that we’ll continue to see upward pressure on salaries as the growth in digital, the integration of communications disciplines and healthier budgets are all big factors fueling the demand. In New York we’ve seen salaries begin to approach those in the Bay Area while other major markets like Southern California and Chicago are also seeing increases.
Below are the ranges our on-the-ground recruiters are seeing in Seattle, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago. [Note: we did not conduct a salary survey that takes into account agencies of every shape and size which of course skews the results and depresses the numbers when you’r considering salary ranges for mid-size and large agencies which is where we do a majority of our consulting. In-house titles vary so widely that we’ve kept this analysis to agency titles but always glad to provide some insights on in-house roles if you’d like to follow-up with an email to me at jdelulio@prtalent.com.]
Seattle
- AAE | $35 – $40K
- AE | $40 – $50K
- Sr. AE | $50 – 65K
- AS | $62 – 80K
- Sr. AS/Director | $80 – 100K
- VP | $100 – $125K
- SVP | $125 – $190K
- EVP | $190 – $250K
- Practice Leader – $225 – 290K
- GM | $250K +
New York
- AAE $38 – 44K
- AE | $45 – 58K
- Sr. AE | $56 – 70K
- AS | $70 – 90K
- Sr. AS/Director | $90 – 120K
- VP | $120 – 165K
- SVP | $165 – 240K
- EVP | $225 – 290K
- Practice Leader – $250 – 300K
- GM | $350K ++
Chicago
- AAE | $35 – $40K
- AE | $40 – $50K
- Sr. AE | $50 – 65K
- AS | $62 – 80K
- Sr. AS/Director | $80 – 110K
- VP | $110 – $135K
- SVP | $130 – $190K
- EVP | $190 – $250K
- Practice Leader – $225 – 290K
- GM | $300K +
San Francisco
- AAE | $40 – $50K
- AE | $50 – $65K
- Sr. AE | $65 – $80K
- AS | $80 – $95K
- Sr AS/Director | $95 – $120K
- VP | $120 – $165K
- SVP $165 – $225K
- EVP $225 – $290K
- Practice Leader – $250 – 300K
- GM | $350K ++
Los Angeles
- AAE | $38-42K
- AE | $43-52K
- Sr. AE | $53-65K
- AS | $66-80K
- Sr. AS / Director | $81-115K
- VP | $116-150K
- SVP | $151-210K
- EVP | $211-320K
- Practice Leader – $200 – 250K
- GM | $320K +