Marketing · Wales

Content Manager salary in Cardiff, 2026

Median annual salary £36,100 based on ONS ASHE, Wales regional adjustment
Lower quartile
£27,550
Upper quartile
£47,500
vs UK median
-5%
Open jobs (est.)
6
Content Managers in Cardiff earn a median £36,100 per year — 5% below the UK average for the role, led by the Cardiff insurance and Welsh Government employer base. The middle 50% of earners sit between £27,550 and £47,500, and senior practitioners with a strong specialism push past £70,680. Pay rises are typically banded by experience rather than annual increment, so the route to higher earnings is changing employer or stepping up a level — not waiting for a cost-of-living adjustment.

Source: ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, 2025, adjusted for the Wales regional pay differential. Updated 2026-04-21. Methodology.

Median
£22,800£68,400
Lower quartile£27,550
Median£36,100
Upper quartile£47,500

Content Manager salary by experience in Cardiff

That headline median masks a wide spread once you split Cardiff content managers by years of experience. The four bands below reflect what each tier typically commands in Cardiff — local figures, not UK averages, with each step usually triggered by a level change rather than an annual increment.

Experience level Salary range Median
Entry (0-2 yrs) £21,375 – £27,312 £24,344
Mid (3-5 yrs) £30,685 – £39,710 £35,198
Senior (6-10 yrs) £53,010 – £67,735 £60,373
Lead (10+ yrs) £69,944 – £95,713 £82,829
Cost-of-living adjusted: A £36,100 Content Manager salary in Cardiff buys what £44,568 would buy at the UK average — that's 17% more real purchasing power than the national figure.

Gross figures only tell half the story — what actually lands in your bank account depends on tax, NI, student loan and pension. Run your own number below.

Take-home pay calculator · 2024/25

Content Manager, Cardiff

£2,351take-home per month

£28,212/yr · £543/wk · effective rate 21.9%

Gross salary£36,100
Pension (5%)£1,805
Income tax£4,345
National Insurance£1,738
Net take-home£28,212

Earn more as a Content Manager

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Pay ranges and take-home are the planning numbers; what you can actually move into right now is a different question. Live content manager vacancies in Cardiff are below.

Open vacancies · via Reed

6 live Content Manager jobs in Cardiff

Live listings refresh daily. View the full set on Reed.

See all Content Manager jobs in Cardiff

It's also worth seeing how Cardiff stacks up — both against the UK average and against other cities content managers commonly relocate between.

Content Manager pay: Cardiff versus UK average

Cardiff
£36,100
UK average
£38,000

Content Manager pay across other UK cities

Cardiff
£36,100
£48,640
£38,760
£37,240
£36,860

Performance vs brand: which Content Manager roles in Cardiff pay more

Marketing pay isn't a single market — it splits along clear lines that the median salary alone doesn't show.

Marketing pay in Cardiff splits cleanly into two tracks. Performance-side roles — paid media, SEO, lifecycle — are measured on revenue contribution, so salaries trend higher when you can point at a P&L line you moved. Brand and content roles pay slightly less at the median (£36,100) but compensate with broader scope and clearer paths into Head of Marketing positions, where the upper quartile (£47,500) and beyond becomes plausible.

The fastest movers in Cardiff tend to combine technical depth (Content strategy, SEO) with commercial fluency — being able to present numbers to a board, model CAC payback, or argue for budget without flinching. Agency roles in Cardiff typically pay 10–20% below in-house equivalents but accelerate skill range; in-house pays better but narrows your remit. Most senior practitioners have done both.

Content Manager salaries in cities near Cardiff

If Cardiff doesn't quite work for the role — commute, rent, partner's job — the same role in nearby cities tells you what the trade-off looks like in £ terms. The four comparisons below show how pay shifts within the same region — multipliers come from the ONS regional median pay differential, so the figures already account for the regional gap.

Other marketing jobs in Cardiff

Adjacent marketing roles often pay differently to content manager for similar skill profiles, which is useful when you're choosing what to specialise in next. Salaries for closely related marketing roles in Cardiff are below — useful when comparing routes into or out of the Content Manager track.

Roles with overlapping skills

Common questions about content manager pay in Cardiff, answered with the underlying figures from the same dataset used above.

Frequently asked questions

What is the average Content Manager salary in Cardiff?

£36,100 per year is the median Content Manager salary in Cardiff, drawn from ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings data adjusted for the regional pay differential. Lower quartile sits at £27,550; upper quartile at £47,500.

How much does a Content Manager earn per month in Cardiff?

About £3,008 gross, which works out at roughly £2,166 take-home after income tax and National Insurance for the 2024/25 tax year (assuming no student loan and a 5% pension contribution). Use the calculator above for a number that matches your own circumstances.

What is the starting salary for a Content Manager in Cardiff?

Entry-level Content Managers in Cardiff typically start between £21,375 and £27,312. Pay then steps up at the 3-year and 6-year marks — mid-level practitioners earn £30,685–£39,710, with senior roles reaching £53,010–£67,735.

Is Cardiff a good place to work as a Content Manager?

It depends on what you weight more heavily — pay, cost of living or commute. Cardiff pays 5% below the UK Content Manager median, with major local employers including Admiral Group, BBC Wales, Principality. Cost of living runs at 81 on the UK-100 index, so £36,100 here has the real purchasing power of £44,568 at the national average. Unemployment of 4.3% gives a useful read on how tight the local labour market is — under 4% generally favours candidates on pay.

What skills do Content Managers need to earn more?

Reaching the upper-quartile £47,500 band tends to come down to depth in Content strategy, SEO, Copywriting, plus a track record that lets you credibly take on senior or lead-level scope. Career outlook for the role is medium, so the speciality areas worth doubling down on are CMS platforms and Analytics.

Salary base figures: ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (2025), with regional adjustment from ONS regional median gross pay tables. Live job counts (where shown): Reed Jobseeker API, refreshed daily. Take-home calculations apply 2024/25 UK tax-year thresholds for England, Wales and Northern Ireland.