Without wanting to heap further misery onto an already challenging situation, if 2025 is anything to go by, then it’s likely that recruitment marketing budgets for 2026 will continue to be stretched. Therefore, all agency marketers will have to keep doing more with less, and subsequently choose their strategies wisely to maximise the available funding.
A fixed allocation in this context is less useful than a more flexible model that links spend to business objectives and that allows for rapid reallocation. But aside from being ready to adapt, how can marketers manage their recruitment marketing budgets for 2026 and beyond?
Global challenges
The UK is not alone in facing challenging economic conditions, and like other difficult periods, this too will be cyclical, and the clouds will once again part in the not-too-distant future. However, for the here and now, it is clear that marketing specialists will continue to be challenged to improve their efficiency.
But that is easier said than done, particularly when many professionals are being pulled from pillar to post by various parts of their business, all of whom are actively seeking marketing support to support their operations.
Choosing what area to prioritise is challenging, but the right approach starts by agreeing on principles for budget setting, followed by suggested areas of investment and then setting practical governance in place to ensure money is spent where it has the most impact.
Managing budget allocations to maximise recruitment marketing budgets
All marketing allocation activity for 2026 should begin with five clear principles in mind:
- Connect spend to business outcomes
- Build a flexible reserve to respond to matters that do require funding, or to test new channels
- Prioritise high-impact activities that are measurable and reusable
- Invest in measurement
- Test and scale
These principles should be the guiding light when planning budgets for 2026, and indeed for any time when budgets are stretched. Naturally, specific allocations should be adapted to the organisation in question and its business model, but it’s useful to consider that candidate acquisition focuses tend to require the largest share of recruitment marketing budgets, because filling vacancies is how firms make money. This will generally absorb around 40-55% of the overall budget, and will incorporate activities including job advertising, programmatic adverts, paid social for talent pools, and SEO aimed at role-specific searches, again, depending on the nature of the firm in question.
Employer branding and content production should be allocated around 15-25% of the available budget. This represents an investment, as evergreen content, such as testimonial videos, role-focused landing pages and other learning resources, will support longer-term efforts and will ultimately reduce cost-per-hire when reviewed on an annual basis.
From here, client acquisition and thought leadership output should garner around 10-20% of funding, with public relations activity, sector reports and account-based marketing, for example, all supporting the creation of more high-value leads. Equally, research-led content is often a cost-effective method of influencing decision-makers when combined with highly targeted outreach.
Elsewhere, technology and analytics should require approximately 5-10% of budgets as, without effective tag management, tracking and data integration, agencies will not be able to attribute their hiring activity or optimise channels. There should then be some funding (around 2-5%) allocated for training and skills development for marketing professionals. However, these two funding pots in particular are likely to grow as technological adoption in the recruitment industry continues to increase and subsequent upskilling is required.
Budget frameworks
However, it’s no good setting up budget allocations and then expecting everything to run smoothly, and there should be clear governance structures in place, with quarterly reviews required for potential reallocation in response to market changes. When it comes to specific reporting, it’s far more effective to be focused than attempting to measure everything, and highlighting a small set of meaningful KPIs such as hire per channel, cost per hire, and three-month retention and conversion rates to ensure that all decision-making remains evidence-based, is a much more coherent approach.
Finally, and despite broader economic challenges, budgets must remain somewhat realistic; only the harshest and most backward directors would continue to underestimate the role played by recruitment marketing in the modern era. However, when times are tight, certain activities must be prioritised, with immediate candidate acquisition coming top of the list, followed by more sustained investments in employer branding and measurement capabilities. Ultimately, by linking spend to business outcomes, recruitment teams can position themselves to deliver commercial returns in a challenging period and be ideally placed to benefit once budgets do begin to rise again.
Have you been tasked with planning recruitment marketing activity on a budget for 2026? Get in touch with our team to identify which areas to prioritise, whilst still driving results.
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