#PandaPounds: Education and Ecommerce

We pandas like to keep our promise…that’s right; it’s time for more exclusive insights from our 2016 Ecommerce Salary Survey. We just can’t keep these wonderful statistics to ourselves, especially when they're all about education and ecommerce.

In this year's salary survey questionnaire, we asked our respondents about their educational background for the first time. The responses ranged from people who went on to further education and those who pursued their careers following Secondary school or college.

What is the highest level of education for our ecommerce respondents?

The majority of our respondents completed a degree while 45% continued in further education with postgraduate or masters degrees. A small number of our respondents completed a Doctorate but the most interesting statistics are the 13% who did not continue to further education. What insights can we gather from this select group?

Age brackets

With more graduate roles & internships today, you would be forgiven in thinking our respondents in a higher age bracket entered the industry in its infancy and worked their way up the ladder. Furthermore, as Ecommerce became more prevalent many people would have made the transition from offline retail to online as opportunities for learning and new challenges arose.

However, this wasn’t necessarily the case. Four of our respondents who fall into the 13% who did not continue their education past college level specified their age bracket as 25 and under. It’s interesting to see that there are still opportunities for people to build experience in technical and creative fields, such as SEO and Digital Design, without a relevant degree.

How long have our respondents been in their industry?

It was interesting to see how length of time in industry compared to our respondent's level of education. Do those who entered the world of ecommerce when it first emerged tend to stick in the same industry as it’s what they have grown with? Do those with undergraduate or master’s qualifications have more freedom to consider different industries because of their education?

Secondary school or college:

• 28% of our respondents who listed secondary school or college as their highest level of education have been in their present industry between 10 and 20 years…that’s a long time. Perhaps it is a love for their industry and what they’ve spent so long building up career wise that keeps them in their industries for this length of time.
• However, 43% have spent 5 years or less in their current industries, some less than a year, which suggests a more recent move of industry. Ecommerce is an ever changing landscape; sometimes solid, proven experience is invaluable to a team and, with or without a degree, hiring managers are looking for talent who know what they do inside out.

Degrees: undergraduate to masters

• 15% of our respondents with undergraduate to master’s degrees have been within their present industries for over ten years. What is interesting is the majority of these respondents hold titles such as Head of Ecommerce, CRM Director or Multichannel Director. It’s clear they remained in a familiar industry to climb high on their career ladder.
• However, there are still respondents with these titles within the 55% who have been in their present industry for five years or less. There are always new challenges to be found in ecommerce, and they won’t stop people who have the determination to try something new and broaden their skills in a new industry.

Class dismissed...

That concludes our insight into the educational backgrounds of our respondents. It's interesting to see where the foundations for their ecommerce careers were built! Keep your eye out for all our #PandaPounds insights...there are many more to follow!