Content strategy survey results: part 1

Between April and May, as part of the community-led project I’m running over the summer, 265 web content professionals from six continents (thank you) were surveyed about their life, work and education. This first set of graphics show the results for gender, age and location.

Gender and Age

Q1. What is your gender?

59.25% of respondents were female with 40.75% male

Key findings

Q2. Which age bracket do you fall into?

27.55% of respondents were aged between 31 and 35

Key findings

  • Hardly earth shattering stuff but over half of all respondents (55.57%) fell between the 31-40 age bracket

Q1. What is your gender? vs. Q2. Which age bracket do you fall into?

15.85% of the 59.25% of female respondents were aged between 31 and 35

Key findings

  • Of the 55.57% of respondents aged between 31-40, approximately 60% were female
Data summary for gender and age questions
Numeric and percentage shares for each gender and age bracket
Age Male Female Total
# % # % # %
Total 108 40.75 157 59.25 265 100
Below 20 3 1.13 0 0 3 1.13
21–25 2 0.75 4 1.51 6 2.26
26-30 20 7.55 22 8.3 42 15.85
31-35 31 11.7 42 15.85 73 27.55
36-40 23 8.68 38 14.34 61 23.02
41-45 14 5.28 21 7.92 35 13.21
46-50 9 3.4 11 4.15 20 7.55
51-55 3 1.13 9 3.4 12 4.53
56-60 1 0.38 7 2.64 8 3.02
Above 60 2 0.75 3 1.13 5 1.89

Geographic Region

World

73% of respondents were based in North America

Key findings

  • As expected the United States and United Kingdom accounted for the vast majority (83%) of all respondents

United States and Canada’s 73% share in detail

32% of U.S. and Canadian respondents were based in the U.S. northeast region

Key findings

  • Just under a quarter of all respondents (24%) hailed from the Northeast region of the United States alone

Europe’s 21% share in detail

65% of European respondents were based in the UK

Key findings

  • With France and Germany accounting for only 6% of Europe’s respondents excluding the United Kingdom, I’m intrigued to learn how the remaining 29% is distributed across the continent
Data summary for location question
Numeric and percentage shares for each region or country
Region # %
Total 265 100
North America Canada 11 4
United States (Northeast) 63 24
United States (Midwest) 47 18
United States (South) 30 11
United States (West) 42 16
Europe Europe (minus France, Germany and UK) 16 6
France 2 1
Germany 1 0
United Kingdom 36 14
Asia and Middle East Asia (minus China, India and Japan) 0 0
China 0 0
India 1 0
Japan 0 0
Middle East 2 1
Australasia 6 2
Africa 6 2
Central/South America and Caribbean 2 1

What can you do with this data?

7 thoughts on “Content strategy survey results: part 1

  1. Nikki

    Wow. Only 2% German Content Strategists? I have to do a lot of promotion, then….Or ring cow bells. Or whatever get’s Germans to participate in our EU network.

  2. FionaC

    Hi Richard, thanks for doing this. It was a fun survey to participate in, too.

    I’m wondering if the seeming lack of content strategists in Europe is not so much because they don’t exist but because ‘content strategist’ as a title hasn’t caught on as much as in the US, or it is not a discrete job but carried out as part of other roles.

    It’s something I’ve been pondering as part of my own work life, which content strategy overlaps to, ooh, let’s make up a statistic and say, 14% actual CS work and 36% CS skills coming under another job title.

  3. Richard Post author

    @Nikki – It’s a shame that we couldn’t entice more content professionals from Germany (and the rest of what call “mainland Europe”) to respond. We’ll just have to find out where they’re doing their good work.

    @FionaC – I agree. It’s probably not as clearly defined as it is in other parts of the world (not that it’s necessarily crystal clear anywhere!) or, as you say, it forms part of other responsibilities and therefore isn’t always reflected in job titles.

  4. J'Ro

    My opersonal reaction: What’s with all these content-strategy younglings? I’m in my 40s and I’m in the 96% percentile (older than 96% of the respondents).

    My professional reaction: Looking at the data, there must be tremendous opportunity for people with Content Strategy skill to move into positions of leadership. Director of Content Strategy, Chief Content Officer, Vice President of …?

  5. David Farbey

    I often get the feeling that I’m the oldest content strategist in the room (“oldest” in chronological age, not necessarily in the way I behave). According to your data, my subjective feeling is well-grounded in objective reality.

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