No creative ever forgets their family’s reaction when they told them they wanted to pursue a creative career. Now they can prove they chose wisely!
Creative operations continue to gain momentum, and today companies are searching for talent to help them manage their creative processes more than ever before.
But creative ops is still an emerging field. Creative professionals are in a great position to negotiate salaries and chart a fulfilling career path. Salary trends give them the ammunition to advocate for their worth. They also help companies attract the best creative wranglers in the industry.
Below we’ll look at the ins and outs of creative ops salary specifics.
What we'll cover
Table of contents
What was the salary range for creative ops in 2024?
Here’s what we discovered:
- 12% earned less than $50K/year
- 21% earned between $50K and $74,999K/year
- 22% earned between $75K and $99,999K/year
- 23% earned between $100K and $149,999K/year
- 12% earned more than $150K/year
Factors affecting creative ops salaries
Multiple factors determine how much a creative operations professional gets paid. This includes everything from where they work to how long they’ve been in the industry. For example, a director of creative operations in Los Angeles will likely earn more than someone with the same job title in Madison, Wisconsin.
Let’s dig into the factors that impact base salary.
Industry
In industries with a high demand for creative services, professionals often have more competitive compensation packages.
This includes:
- Technology: The tech industry has a reputation for rapid innovation, and creativity is a hot commodity. Tech companies invest in their creative teams by offering competitive salaries and appealing benefits packages.
- Advertising and marketing: Advertising and marketing agencies rely on creative professionals to build successful campaigns. Creative operations professionals in these industries are frequently well-compensated.
- Entertainment: Film, television, and gaming execs admire creative talent. This talent is also rewarded generously, especially in major markets.
- Design and architecture: These fields require strong creative expertise. With specialized skills, creative ops professionals can earn top dollar.
Location
Cities with higher costs of living, like Boston, Atlanta, and San Francisco, typically offer bigger salaries. In cities that serve as hubs for certain industries — like New York, which is historically the heart of marketing and advertising — salaries may be even higher. On the flip side, smaller cities with specialized industries may also offer competitive salaries to attract a wider talent pool.
Experience
As creative ops professionals gain more experience, they command better compensation. They have more project wins and can tackle challenging creative projects with finesse. They may also be better equipped to work with cross-functional teams.
In our survey, more than half of respondents (62%) had 10 or more years of experience working with creative teams.
Skills
Professionals with more skills on their resumes are generally rewarded with higher salaries. If they master digital asset management (DAM) tools, project management methodologies, and creative approval software, they add more value to their organizations.
Soft skills like strategic thinking, communication, and problem-solving can be just as valuable as technical skills. You see them frequently in job descriptions.
Education
Degrees and certificates give creative ops professionals more skills, and those skills are often reflected in their paychecks. A creative operations manager with an MBA may make more than someone with a bachelor’s degree.
Creative operations salary trends in 2024
Wondering whether in-office creative ops professionals earn more than remote workers? Or if there’s a salary difference between in-house and agency creatives? We’ve got the answers you’re looking for!
Here are some key trends to know:
Remote vs. in-office
We found no clear correlation between a creative professional’s average salary and whether they work in an office or remotely. Flexibility in an employee’s work location seems to have no bearing on compensation in creative operations.
B2B vs. B2C
Our research also shows no correlation between the type of company a creative ops employee works for and how much they make. They’re just as likely to earn a high salary working for a business-to-consumer (B2C) company as they are working for a business-to-business (B2B) company.
In-house creatives tend to earn more than agency creatives
One area where we saw a clear salary difference was between in-house and agency creatives. Specifically, in-house creatives are more likely to make $100K or more, while the pay range is between $50-$99,999K for agency creatives.
This is likely because in-house positions may offer more job security and benefits, which can be reflected in a higher compensation package. Companies with in-house creative teams often have a higher budget to invest in their creative ops teams.
In-house creative teams also have a more direct impact on their company’s bottom line. Since in-house creatives drive revenue growth and profitability, companies will often compensate them with more pay.
The role of business structure in creative salaries
All creative teams operate a little differently. While some collaborate primarily with internal teams to create successful marketing campaigns, others interact mostly with external clients and stakeholders.
This can have a direct impact on creative salaries. We found that creative ops professionals report higher salaries when their team is part of the marketing function than when the team is an agency function that supports client-facing teams.
What factors drive salary increases in creative operations?
Across industries, salary increases are usually based on an employee’s performance and contributions to the company. In our survey, we found that many of these same factors drove salary increases in the creative ops space.
Of the creative operations professionals we surveyed:
- 31% received a merit- or tenure-based raise
- 21% received no salary increase
- 17% received a cost-of-living adjustment
- 16% received a promotion
- 2% changed companies
Future outlook for creative operations
The future of creative operations currently skews toward in-house teams. In our survey, 36% of respondents said their creative team is larger than it was a year ago. Nearly three-quarters (70%) said they worked for an in-house team.
Respondents at agencies also reported that their creative teams were either smaller than a year ago (25%) or the same size (38%), while 51% of in-house respondents said their creative teams were larger than a year ago. This likely indicates there will be more creative operations jobs within in-house teams but perhaps fewer agency jobs.
