New research has revealed the growing career choices that could benefit job seekers, as well as businesses aiming to keep up with competitors
Roles include ‘AI Prompt Engineers’, which can earn up to £775 per day, despite 73% of Brits having never heard of the job and 1 in 8 believing it to be ‘made up’
Recruitment and business experts discuss these ‘unknown’ career choices and why they present an opportunity for job seekers and even for new business ventures
Tide’s UK Managing Director Heather Cobb discusses why some emerging roles deserve more attention than others for SMEs, and how funding can support new hires
Tide, the UK’s leading business management platform, can reveal that a lack of awareness of emerging job roles could be holding back businesses and individuals from career prospects, growth and higher salaries.
By consulting with recruitment firms and experts in high-growth sectors like AI and influencer marketing, Tide compiled a range of job roles that have emerged in recent years, and worked with Censuswide to ask more than 2,000 Brits whether they had ever heard of the roles or had any knowledge of what they might involve.
The results reveal as many as 80% of respondents have never heard of many new career paths, highlighting a need for greater awareness around certain career options, especially those in tech, AI and marketing - all of which offer significant opportunities for both individual career progression and growth within small businesses.
The top roles Brits have never heard of
Four-in-five Brits (80%) were unaware that the emerging role of a Belonging Manager existed. This role promotes a positive culture in the workplace, and can demand a salary of approximately £80,000 per year, which would place successful applicants in the top 5% of earners in the UK.
Among the other roles with less awareness sit within the world of AI, such as AI Prompt Engineers, a role of testing and refining Artificial Intelligence capabilities. While an average salary for this role is around £53,500 per year, some companies are offering up to £775 per day for the expertise. This presents a lucrative opportunity for those with an interest in AI, especially as demand for prompt pros has risen by 49% over the last two years.
Two-thirds of the population are also unaware of the role of an AI Product Manager, despite global demand growing by 83% in just 12 months.
While the social media-led content creation scene ignited fully in 2020, there is still perhaps not enough awareness of the roles behind the scenes, such as a Creator Partnerships Executive, in which 7 in 10 Brits were unaware of. With salaries of up to £60,000, this role helps to connect creators to reputable brands, with the aim of boosting visibility online and influencing customer behaviour.
Rank | Job Role | Percentage of Brits unaware of role |
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| Augmented Intelligence Officer | |
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| Creator Partnerships Executive | |
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| Machine Learning Specialist | |
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Reflecting the lack of awareness for these roles, nearly one in five Brits (18%) presumed that both a ‘Belonging Manager’ and ‘Empathy Engineer’ were not legitimate job roles when surveyed. Among the other roles people regarded as fiction were ‘Biostatician’ (14%), ‘Prompt Engineer’ (13%) and ‘Augmented Intelligence Officer’ (12%).
How AI can be the key to small business growth?
While it may have seemed hard to escape the acceleration of artificial intelligence during 2025, the lack of knowledge around multiple AI focused roles highlights a potential gap that smaller businesses owners can capitalise on to supercharge business growth, as competitors may still be late to the AI revolution.
Speaking on the rising demand from some business owners to consider AI within their marketing efforts, Tide member, Recruiter & Founder of WithFrontier James Congdon discusses the growing demand for the lesser-known role of ‘GEO Strategists’, who can help businesses to appear in the likes of Chat GPT queries, as well as traditional Google search: “A growing proportion of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) roles now explicitly reference GEO in the title, where people are expected to think beyond traditional rankings and into visibility across AI-led discovery surfaces such as ChatGPT or Gemini. SEO experts, as well as businesses, will lose out in the long run if they don’t look at their marketing efforts through an AI lense”.
Entry-level salaries for SEO/GEO specialists sit within the £20,000-£30,000 range, however experienced directors can command six-figure salaries of £100,000 upwards, making it yet another smart career choice that more people could benefit from being aware of.
When it came down to prospective employees' stances on AI, two-fifths of Brits said they would consider AI training to help improve their future career or business prospects. Geographically, Belfast (54%), London (54%) and Manchester (51%) showed the most interest in adopting AI skills to benefit their progression.
Why are stories big business in 2026?
Outside of the need to adopt AI, the data also highlights a range of jobs that tap into content creation and the art of telling stories, with a lack of knowledge around roles dealing with creator partnerships, brand editorial or social storytelling. Just 52% have heard of influencer marketing roles, despite them playing such a big role in modern social media.
While working with influencers may seem like a lesser-priority for small businesses and start ups, Verity Park, Tide member and Founder & CEO of tbh talent says the opposite: “As soon as you start a business, you should be thinking about creators. Influencer marketing isn’t something you 'graduate' into once you have budgets - it’s something that should be integrated into your marketing strategy at every level - starting small, learning and testing can help you get to the point where you have big budgets to play with”.
“There are so many examples of brands that did this brilliantly. Gymshark is the obvious one - now valued at around $1.5 billion - and I remember when they were simply seeding product out to creators. Influencers were their entire strategy from day one.”
The big opportunity here for both businesses and creators lies with storytelling, a role just 33% of the population know about, as Verity says, “Finding talent who are genuine storytellers - creators who can integrate a product in a way that feels natural, fun and interesting, is key.”
“Roles like social storytellers exist (and are expanding) because attention has shifted. Creators are where people spend their time - they’re the new billboards, the new tv shows, the new ‘entertainment’. And as more digitally native people move into senior decision-making roles, this space (and budgets) will only keep growing.”
Heather Cobb, UK Managing Director of Tide said: “Taking the time to build knowledge around the in-demand roles and skillsets can be a great advantage for job seekers and business owners alike.
“For smaller businesses, upskilling in areas such as AI and embedding these skills into the workplace early can be a more beneficial focus, especially given that even the largest organisations are grappling with how to use AI effectively to sustain year-on-year growth.
“Whatever the role, hiring focus or marketing strategy, it takes investment, both from a training and a salary viewpoint - something that a business loan can help with, especially if an owner wants to capitalise on a growing opportunity before it passes”.
ENDS
Methodology
The research was conducted by Censuswide on behalf of Tide, to a sample of 2,000 nationally representative UK respondents. Data was collected between 16.01.2026 and 19.01.2026. Percentage figures on the ‘most unknown roles’ have been rounded up. Censuswide abides by and employs members of the Market Research Society and follows the MRS Code of Conduct and ESOMAR principles. Censuswide is also a member of the British Polling Council.
Salary figures gained via current and recent job listings for the roles mentioned. Where averages are mentioned, at least three job listings and accompanying salaries for the specific role were used.
Increase in demand figures for particular job roles gained via Google Keyword Planner, by comparing the search volume for each job role during October-December 2023, October-December 2024 and October-December 2025.
All data is correct as of January 2026.
Contact:
Raquel Pinto, Senior PR Executive, Propellernet / raquel@propellernet.co.uk
Luke Largan, Senior PR Executive, Propellernet / luke@propellernet.co.uk
Lloyd Purnell, PR & Communications Lead, Tide / lloyd.purnell@tide.co
About Tide:
Launched in 2017, Tide is the leading business management platform in the UK. Tide helps small businesses save time and money by not only offering business accounts and related admin services, but also a comprehensive set of highly usable and connected administrative solutions from invoicing to accounting and adjacent commercial services such as web-site building.
Tide has nearly 800,000 SME members in the UK (14% market share) and more than
800,000 SMEs in India. Tide launched in Germany in May 2024 and France in September 2025. Tide has also been recognised with the Great Place to Work certification three years in a row. Tide has been funded by Anthemis, the Apax Digital Funds, Augmentum Fintech, Creandum, Salica Investments, Latitude, LocalGlobe, SBI Group, Speedinvest and TPG, amongst others. It employs more than 2,500 Tideans worldwide. Tide’s long-term ambition is to be the leading business management platform globally.
