The Chad Harrison International Talent Report is our annual review of senior hiring conditions across the five sector verticals we serve: Print, Packaging, POS & Display, Marketing Services and Promotional Merchandise. It draws on live placement data, direct feedback from candidates and clients, and our consultants’ ongoing intelligence from the market. This is the 2025/26 edition.
Headline Findings
Supply constraint continues to drive market dynamics. For the third successive year, the primary constraint on senior hiring across our verticals is the supply of experienced, commercially credible candidates — not demand. Businesses with senior vacancies are competing for a limited pool of proven talent, and the businesses that structure their processes and opportunities most effectively are consistently winning that competition.
Compensation has moved significantly. Average senior Director-level compensation across our sector verticals has increased by approximately 14% over the past two years. Businesses using legacy salary benchmarks are underpricing their roles and losing shortlists. The market has moved; hiring assumptions need to keep pace.
Sustainability expertise commands a meaningful premium. Across packaging, POS and promotional merchandise particularly, candidates with genuine sustainability expertise — supply chain compliance, materials knowledge, circular economy models — are commanding 10–18% premium over equivalently experienced candidates without it. The premium reflects genuine scarcity.
Process length is the biggest single variable in hire quality. Our data shows a clear negative correlation between process length and hire quality at senior level. Searches that conclude in 8–10 weeks consistently produce better-quality hires than those that extend to 14–16 weeks. The best candidates have options; extended processes lose them.
Sector-by-Sector View
Print: Active senior hiring market, particularly for Sales Directors and MDs at businesses in growth or transformation. Consolidation continuing to create both displacement and opportunity. Technology investment (wide-format, inkjet, digital) driving operational leadership demand.
Packaging: The most active senior market of our five verticals in 2025. PE-backed activity driving demand for MD and Commercial Director talent. Sustainability-focused businesses creating demand for technical leadership with materials and compliance expertise. Salary growth the highest of any vertical.
POS & Display: Recovery in physical retail creating genuine demand for commercial talent capable of managing major retail programme relationships. Digital/physical integration skills at a premium. Market growing, though from a lower base than pre-pandemic levels.
Marketing Services: Technology disruption (AI, automation) creating bifurcation in demand. Growing demand for technology-literate commercial leaders; declining demand for high-volume production management. Outsourced marketing services market active for senior client development talent.
Promotional Merchandise: Consolidation affecting talent availability — M&A activity releasing experienced candidates while simultaneously creating integration demand. Ethical sourcing and compliance expertise increasingly required at senior level.
Forward View
We expect the supply-constrained dynamic to persist through 2026. The structural factors driving it — demographic ageing of the senior candidate pool, limited development pipelines producing genuinely senior talent, and ongoing consolidation reducing the number of businesses that develop senior leaders organically — are not resolving in the short term.
Businesses that respond to this reality by improving how they approach the senior market — investing in compelling opportunity design, moving with greater pace and decision quality, and working with specialist partners who have genuine access to the relevant candidate population — will continue to build competitive advantage through talent. Those that continue to treat senior hiring as an administrative process will continue to underperform it.
If you’d like to discuss the implications of the Talent Report for your specific hiring plans, we’d welcome the conversation.
