Best Entry Level Remote Marketing Jobs Ranked by Openings, Pay and Barrier to Entry

The best entry level remote marketing job is marketing specialist, and it is not close: it leads every other marketing occupation on pay, on annual openings and on projected growth at the same time. The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts it together with market research analysts, at a $78,760 median in May 2025, about 82,000 projected openings a year through 2035, and 7 percent growth. Nothing else in marketing wins on more than one of those three.

That is worth stating plainly because almost every guide to breaking into marketing points beginners somewhere else, usually at social media or at content writing. Those are real jobs. They are also, on the federal numbers, the two smallest doors in the field.

The five marketing occupations, ranked by annual openings

Openings are the number that matters when you are trying to get in. Growth rate tells you whether a field is expanding; annual openings tell you how many chairs actually come free each year, including every one vacated by someone retiring or moving on. A shrinking occupation with heavy turnover can still be far easier to enter than a fast-growing one that is tiny.

All figures below are read from the Occupational Outlook Handbook at bls.gov. Wages are May 2025 medians and projections run 2025 to 2035.

Those five occupations generate about 169,200 openings a year between them. Marketing specialists account for 82,000 of that, which is 48 percent, just under half the entire field's annual intake in one occupation. The other four combined supply 87,200.

The number that should change where you apply

Compare the top row with the bottom row, because they are the two that beginners most often confuse.

Marketing specialist pays a $78,760 median. Writer and author pays $76,910. The gap is $1,850 a year, which is close to nothing. But marketing specialist projects about 82,000 openings a year and writers and authors projects about 11,900. That is roughly 6.9 times more chances a year, for $1,850 more money.

This is the single most useful fact in this article, and it runs directly against the standard advice to start by writing. Writing is not a bad job and it is not a dying one; BLS projects it flat, at 0 percent, rather than declining. It is simply a small occupation, at 140,300 jobs against 952,700. Small occupations are hard to enter for reasons that have nothing to do with your ability.

The practical translation: if you want to write, take a marketing specialist or content marketing role at a company and write inside it. The title on the listing is what determines how many listings exist. The work you do once you are in there is far more negotiable than beginners expect.

Why the highest-paying row is not an entry point

Advertising, promotions and marketing managers earn a $165,780 median, more than double every other row. It is worth understanding why that row is not the answer to this question.

Manager roles in marketing are filled by promotion and by lateral hire from people who have already run campaigns and owned a budget. The 36,300 annual openings are real, but they are almost entirely filled from inside the field rather than from outside it. Treat that row as the destination rather than the door, and note that it is reachable: at 6 percent growth and 27,900 added positions, the ladder above you is widening rather than narrowing.

The useful read is the gap. Moving from a $78,760 specialist median to a $165,780 manager median is roughly a doubling, and it is the largest single step available anywhere in marketing. Most people who make it do so in four to seven years. That is the actual career case for entering this field, and it is stronger than the entry salary suggests.

The one lane to think twice about

Graphic design is the only marketing occupation on this list that BLS projects to shrink, by 2 percent or about 4,200 positions between 2025 and 2035, and the handbook is unusually direct about the cause: the decline reflects automated design tools and artificial intelligence, even as demand for visually appealing layouts and branding continues.

It is also the lowest-paid row, at $62,960. So a beginner choosing design is choosing the only lane in marketing that is simultaneously the cheapest and the one under the most obvious automation pressure. That is a real signal and it is worth taking seriously.

The honest counterweight is that 16,000 openings a year still exist, which is more than the writing route offers, and design skill remains genuinely scarce at the high end. If you are already a strong designer, none of this argues for abandoning it. If you are choosing a lane from scratch in 2026 and design is one of several options you would equally enjoy, the federal data points elsewhere. Current openings sit on our remote design jobs page either way.

What actually gets an entry level marketing application read

Marketing is the easiest field in this comparison to prove without a job, because the entire output is public. Nobody can see the spreadsheets a junior analyst built, but anyone can see a landing page, a newsletter or a search ranking.

Bring three artifacts, each with a number attached. Not a portfolio in the design sense, just three things you shipped and what happened. A personal site that ranks for something, a newsletter with real subscribers, a small business whose local listing you fixed. One specific outcome, stated in a sentence, beats a page of adjectives about being passionate and data-driven.

The fastest way to build that evidence is simply to publish on a schedule and measure it, which is why so many people entering content and SEO start with their own project and lean on tools that research keywords and draft SEO articles to keep a calendar moving while they learn the analysis side. What you are proving is not that you can write a post. It is that you can pick a target, ship against it repeatedly, and read the result honestly.

Two specifics worth knowing before you apply. First, marketing titles are unusually unreliable: a marketing specialist at a 40-person company and a marketing specialist at a 4,000-person company do almost unrelated work, so read the responsibilities and ignore the noun. Second, the analytical branch is underapplied for. Most beginners chase social and content; far fewer chase the research, reporting and lifecycle roles, which is part of why that lane has 82,000 openings. If numbers do not frighten you, that is where the door is widest. The same pattern shows up in technology, which we covered in best entry level remote IT jobs.

The short version

Rank marketing jobs by openings rather than by how appealing they sound, because openings are what you compete for. Marketing specialist is the best entry target for almost everyone: it leads on pay, on volume and on growth simultaneously, which no other row does. Avoid choosing the writing route for the money, because it pays $1,850 more than the specialist route while offering about a seventh of the chances. Treat the manager row as the destination, since the step from specialist to manager roughly doubles the median and is the biggest single jump in the field.

Then get in anywhere and specialize from the inside, because the title on the listing controls how many listings exist, and almost nothing else about your career. Current openings with a published salary range on every one are on our remote marketing jobs page, and the widest cut of first roles across every function is on entry level remote jobs. If you are weighing whether to pay for a job search subscription while you look, we ran the numbers in is LinkedIn Premium worth it.