The short version: Video marketing covers strategy roles (Video Marketing Manager, Content Strategist), production roles (Videographer, Video Producer), post-production roles (Video Editor, Motion Graphics Designer), and platform-specific roles (YouTube Strategist, Social Media Video Specialist, UGC Creator). Most small businesses need one of these titles, not all of them, and hiring the wrong one is the fastest way to burn a marketing budget on nothing.
Useful alongside this: How Much Should You Budget for AI Video Creation in 2026?.
I’ve hired for most of these roles myself over the years, and I’ve watched clients hire for the wrong ones. So this isn’t a scraped list. It’s what these job titles mean when you’re paying someone’s salary or invoice.
The strategy titles (the ones that decide what gets made)
These people don’t touch a camera or a timeline. Their job is deciding what video gets made, why, and whether it worked.
- Video Marketing Manager, owns the video strategy end to end. Picks formats, sets goals, reports on performance. UK salary range: £35,000 to £55,000. US range: $65,000 to $95,000.
- Content Strategist, broader than video alone, decides where video fits against blogs, email and social. Often the person who also worries about lead magnets and funnel content.
- Head of Content / Content Director, senior version of the above, usually manages a small team including video staff.
- Video Marketing Strategist (freelance/consultant), hired short term to build a content calendar and format plan, then hands off to an internal team or editor.
The production titles (the ones who film it)
- Videographer, shoots the footage. Freelance day rates in the UK sit between £250 and £500. In the US, $400 to $800 a day is normal for a solo operator with their own kit.
- Video Producer, manages the shoot logistically: location, talent, schedule, budget. On bigger productions this is a separate person from the videographer.
- Director of Photography (DoP), only shows up on larger brand or ad shoots, controls the visual look. You will not need this title for social content.
- Scriptwriter / Video Copywriter, writes the words before anyone films anything. Cheapest, highest-use hire on this whole list, and the one most businesses skip.
The post-production titles (the ones who make it watchable)
- Video Editor, cuts the raw footage into something usable. Freelance rates run £150 to £400 per finished minute depending on complexity, or £250 to £450 a day.
- Motion Graphics Designer, adds animated titles, lower thirds, kinetic text. UK salary £30,000 to £50,000 in-house, or £35 to £70 an hour freelance.
- Colourist, grades footage for consistent look. Only relevant once you’re producing at a scale where visual consistency across dozens of videos matters.
- Sound Designer / Audio Editor, cleans audio, adds music licensing sorted. Underrated hire, because bad audio kills a video faster than bad footage does.
The platform-specific titles (newer, and often misunderstood)
These are the titles that didn’t exist ten years ago and now get thrown around loosely on job boards.
- YouTube Strategist / YouTube Manager, handles thumbnails, titles, SEO, upload scheduling, and channel growth. This is a distinct skill from general video editing.
- Social Media Video Specialist, makes short-form vertical content for TikTok, Reels and Shorts. Speed matters more than polish here.
- UGC Creator, films content that looks like organic user footage, usually for paid social ads. Brands pay UGC creators £100 to £500 per video, sometimes more for a proven track record.
- Live Stream Producer, manages webinars, LinkedIn Lives, and event streaming. Niche, but growing as B2B brands lean into live formats.
- Video SEO Specialist, optimises titles, descriptions, tags and transcripts so video gets found in search. Overlaps heavily with the kind of technical work covered in my piece on common SEO mistakes.
The hybrid titles you’ll see on job boards
Small companies rarely hire for one title. They hire for a blend and call it something vague. Watch for these:
- Content Creator, often means “films, edits, writes captions, and posts it herself.” One person doing four jobs.
- Multimedia Marketing Specialist, video plus graphics plus copy, usually a marketing generalist role with video as one function among several.
- Brand Storyteller, newer, softer title, usually means content strategist with a video lean.
- Video Marketing Coordinator, junior support role, schedules shoots, uploads content, chases approvals.
A real example: the client who hired the wrong title
A coaching client of mine, a training company with about fifteen staff, hired a “Video Marketing Manager” on a £42,000 salary. Four months in, they still had nothing published. Not because the hire was lazy. Because what they needed was a video editor who could turn her webinar recordings into weekly YouTube uploads and short clips for LinkedIn.
The manager they hired was a strategist by training. She could build a content calendar beautifully. She couldn’t sit in Premiere Pro for six hours cutting a forty-minute webinar down to eight minutes. So she outsourced editing to a freelancer on top of her salary, which meant the company was paying twice for one output. Total monthly cost before a single video went live: roughly £3,800. We restructured it. Kept the freelance editor. Dropped the manager role down to a part-time strategy retainer. Output went from zero to three videos a week within six weeks, at under half the previous cost.
Here’s the uncomfortable part nobody likes saying out loud: most small businesses don’t need a “Video Marketing Manager” at all. They need a decent editor and someone willing to hit record on their phone twice a week. The fancy title is often what gets budget approved internally, not what gets content made. Companies hire for the job title that sounds impressive in a board meeting, then wonder why nothing’s published three months later.
How to work out which title you need
Five questions, in order, before you write a job spec or brief a freelancer:
- Do you already have footage sitting unused? If yes, hire a Video Editor first. Not a strategist, not a manager. Someone to cut what you’ve already got.
- Do you have nothing filmed yet but a clear message? Hire a Videographer or work with a UGC Creator for quick turnaround content.
- Do you have content but no plan for where it goes? That’s a Content Strategist or Video Marketing Strategist gap, often solvable with a short consulting engagement rather than a full-time hire.
- Is your only channel YouTube and it’s underperforming? Hire a YouTube Strategist specifically. General video editors often don’t understand thumbnail click-through rate or search intent on that platform.
- Are you a one-person business trying to do all of it yourself? Stop. Outsource editing first. It’s the single most time-consuming part and the easiest to hand off cheaply.
If you’re building this out on a tight budget, it’s worth checking the free tools I use instead of expensive marketing software before you commit to a salaried hire. A lot of editing and scheduling work that used to need a dedicated coordinator can now be handled with the right free or low-cost tool and two hours a week of your own time. For anyone building a video content plan from scratch, I’d also point you to the video stats every marketer should know before deciding how many titles you need on the team. If your audience is watching short-form vertical content, you need a Social Media Video Specialist far more urgently than a Director of Photography.
Titles that sound impressive but rarely earn their keep at small business scale
A blunt list, because someone should say it: Director of Photography, Colourist, and full-time Live Stream Producer are all titles that make sense once you’re producing dozens of videos a month with a real budget behind them. Under that scale, you’re paying for a title, not a result. I’ve seen agencies pitch a “full video production team” to a business turning over £400,000 a year. That business needed one good freelance editor and a phone with a decent camera. Nothing more.
What to put in the job spec instead of a title
If you’re hiring, skip the fancy title and write the spec around outputs. “Edits three short-form videos a week from raw webinar footage, turns them around within 48 hours, delivers with captions burned in” tells a candidate exactly what you need and lets them self-select whether they’re an editor, a coordinator, or a strategist. Titles confuse people. Deliverables don’t.
Once you know the output you need, picking the right software matters almost as much as picking the right person. My rundown of the best video marketing tools covers what each role uses day to day, and my piece on choosing the right content creation tool will save you from buying software built for a team of ten when you’re a team of one.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most common job title in video marketing?
Content Creator is the most common title, though it usually means someone doing filming, editing and posting all at once rather than a single specialised function. Video Editor and Videographer are the next most common as standalone hires.
Do I need a Video Marketing Manager or a Video Editor first?
If you have no footage published yet, hire a Video Editor or Videographer before a manager. A manager without content to work with just produces plans, not videos, and plans don’t get watched.
How much should I pay a freelance video editor?
Expect £150 to £400 per finished minute in the UK, or £250 to £450 for a day rate. In the US, freelance editors typically charge $50 to $100 an hour or $300 to $600 a day depending on experience and turnaround speed.
Is a UGC Creator the same as an influencer?
No. A UGC Creator films content that looks organic but is made specifically for a brand’s ads, and the brand owns and posts it. An influencer posts to their own audience from their own account. UGC creators are typically paid per video, £100 to £500, rather than for reach or followers.
