This PR Talent Trends Year in Review podcast discusses the Public Relations (PR) job market and talent trends of 2025. The host is PRmoment founder Ben Smith and he's speaking with Dean Connelly, founder and PR recruitment director at Latte.

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Key points from the discussion:

Job availability: There was a slight uptick in PR jobs in 2025 compared to 2024, specifically a 6% increase, according to Latte's data. However, this figure is still significantly down (17% less) compared to 2022, which suggests the "COVID boom" has flattened out. The years 2024 and 2025 have been "the toughest" in the last five years.

Client Hiring Trends: In 2022, Latte had seven fewer clients but 17% more jobs were released than in 2025, indicating that agencies and brands were hiring at a rapid rate and more often at that time.

Recruitment Levels: More roles were hired at the Account Executive (AE) and Senior Account Executive (SAE) level, making up 30% of the vacancies seen this year. 23% of the roles were at the Account Director (AD) and Senior Account Director (SAD) level.

Consumer PR Senior Talent: It was a "tough year" for consumer senior-level talent but at more junior levels there are recruitment demand still outweighs supply.

In-House Market: The in-house market seems to be a "slower market".

Salaries: Pay increases have been relatively low for the past 12 months, which is "welcome news for business owners". Talent is no longer coming in with "ridiculous requests," and the frequency of needing to manage salary expectations in a conversation has "really dropped," likely driven by the softening job market.

AI in PR Jobs: Job specifications are changing to reflect the increasing nature of AI, but not as widespread as one might think. The second half of the year saw more conversations around agencies testing candidates' AI skills and ability to prompt. Some small-to-midsize agencies have hired AI specialists whose job is to work on prompting and building a platform.

Redundancies: The frequency of redundancies is about the same as last year, but bold headlines "creates fear". There is still a gap between available jobs and available talent, and good agency talent is "still getting snapped up pretty quickly". The market is more difficult for those who are in-house and want to stay in-house, as those roles are more competitive if they are for a "good brand".