Are charities exploiting the job market and undervaluing digital roles?

The third sector undervalues digital roles

Which pays more a Digital Marketing Executive for a large (top 5.5%) charity or a Shop Assistant in Aldi (Reading)?

One can pay up to £13.95 per hour and the other pays £13.85 per hour.

As you have probably guessed the shop assistant pays more, the “Executive” role pays £13.85. 

Within the charity sector there is, apparently, a problem with “digital” skills. According to Charity Digital Report 2025 only 32% of “small” (under £1m income) charities have a digital strategy in place, compared to 68% of large (over £1m income) charities. The term digital is broad and can cover anything from simple online comms to more advanced skills like SEO, content analysis, webmaster, CRO, paid media, managing Google ad grants, creating automations, exploring AI and so on.

When I saw this job being advertised for a Digital Marketing Executive by the Royal Meteorological Society (RMetS) was paying a meagre £27,000 I had to take a second look. Either they have received bad advice or they are clueless. I did email them to double check this was the correct salary amount, needless to say I haven’t heard back.

Digital Marketing Executive for the Royal Meteorological Society (RMetS)

• Degree or relevant marketing qualification.
• Minimum of two years’ experience in a digital marketing role.
• Experience of email marketing, social media (including advertising) and content marketing.
• Digital content design skills with experience in creating and repurposing digital content through applications such as Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Premier Pro, Audition (or other equivalent.)

And expected this £27k a year role to: 

• Develop and execute digital marketing campaigns.
• Create compelling copy for the website, email campaigns, social media and other digital marketing materials.
• Manage the Society’s website, including developing, updating and monitoring content to ensure SEO/GEO maximisation and best practice.
• Plan, develop and oversee the production and repurposing of digital content including videos, podcasts and live streaming events, creating promotional, informational and thought leadership content.
• Oversee the design and production of printed material, branded assets and promotional items ensuring consistent implementation of the brand.
• Monitor and report on the performance of digital marketing campaigns, making recommendations for improvements and adjustments as needed.
• Build strong, productive, collaborative working relationships internally and externally to support the delivery of the digital marketing strategy.

£27,000 for a 37.5 working week is the equivalent of £13.85 per hour, this is £1.14 higher than minimum wage (April 2026), a squeak above the national living wage (40p). This is the state of non-profit digital role salaries.

This is an “executive” role that expects experience and specialist knowledge and yet they are paying the salary of an officer role, or an Aldi Shop Assistant.

They want a digital unicorn but will only pay for a donkey.

Why is the Royal Meteorological Society (RMetS) undervaluing this role?

• Exploiting the fact they are a charity? Probably. 
• Exploiting the current job market? More than likely. 
• They do not value the digital marketing role? Evidently.

Only 5.5% of charities in England and Wales have an income of £1 million or more and yet they are choosing to exploit a “passion tax.” 

Worse still is that extra hours “for the cause” can be expected from time to time. 37.5 hours a week is a 7h 30m day, so 9 – 5 with a 30 minute unpaid lunch break. If the employee works just 30 minutes extra each day (9 – 5.30) the wage drops to £13.50 per hour, 30p below the living wage. If this creeps up to 48 minutes per day (or 4 hours a week) then the hourly pay becomes ILLEGAL at 20p below the minimum wage (April 2026) for that week. Again, a reminder, this is a digital marketing executive role.

It also seems that charities and employment specialists are oblivious to inflation. In 2012 when I started out in an admin role the pay was around £24,000. If you use the BoE inflation calculator, that is the equivalent of £34,834 in today’s devalued money.

The monthly take home on £27,000 is £1,913.30 after tax (£240.50) and NI (£96). This job will exclude a lot of people who cannot realistically live off £1,900 a month.

The charity sector should not exploit the fact they are a charity to squeeze people. The sector can be very smug and self congratulating, but it does not mean they aren’t exploiting the workforce and the goodwill of the workers and even their supporters.

The charity sector’s self inflicted digital skills gap

The sector should stop moaning about lack of digital skills and start valuing it properly. “Digital first” is a phrase banded around, yet trustees remain uneducated:

• 40% of charities have no digital expertise on their board of trustee
• 28% of charities report that their boards have poor digital skills, 
• 30% of charities have one digital trustee
• just 12% of charities have multiple trustees with digital expertise

Leadership in charities isn’t much better:

• 21% of charity CEOs have poor general digital skills
• 64% of charities want their CEO to develop a clear vision of what the organisation could achieve with digital
• only 44% of charities currently have a digital strategy

What makes this even more surprising is that 43% of the respondents to the Charity Digital Skills survey were ones that make £500k or more, these are the elite charities, the top 10%. If they can’t get it right, is it any wonder that there is a so-called charity digital “skills gap”.

It is self-inflicted.

Narrow minded leadership that doesn’t see the value in a “digital role” treat digital staff as “the people who do the Facebooking and stuff” rather than the engine of the charity’s reach and growth.

The Woodland Heritage

Shame on the Royal Meteorological Society for grossly undervaluing this role. It is not just them, The Woodland Heritage (income £1.5m) had an ad for a Communications “Officer” with a JD that included:

• “Content creation” and “Social media engagement.”
• “Website improvement and maintenance.”
• “Email marketing engagement” and “Print and postal engagement.”
• “Planning and delivery of communications for in-person educational  opportunities.”

This is NOT an officer role, this is at the very least a Comms Manager role.

They were paying £15,000 for a 22.5-hour week role which equates to an hourly rate of £12.82, 11p above the minimum wage and 63p below the living wage.

Disgraceful. 

If the sector wants to be more serious about digital then it needs to value it appropriately.