Is it time to rethink the career ladder?

We tend to talk about career progression as something that happens upwards. You become more senior. You manage a bigger team. You take on more responsibility. You take a seat at the boardroom table. 

There’s nothing wrong with any of those ambitions. For some people, they absolutely are markers of success, and a professional body should be there to support them to achieve those ambitions. But they aren’t the only ways to build a successful career in PR and communications. 

The CIPR’s latest State of the Profession report begins its executive summary with three words: “No one PR industry”. It paints a picture of a broad profession, encompassing different roles, specialisms, sectors, ways of working and professional ambitions. So why do we still so often talk about career progression as though there is only one direction of travel? 

Progress isn’t synonymous with promotion or taking another step up the so-called career ladder. Careers can of course move upwards, but they can also move sideways, become deeper and more specialist, move into independent practice or change direction completely. 

Someone might want greater access to the C-suite or to take a seat at the boardroom table. Someone else might want to become exceptionally good at the hands-on delivery they love. One practitioner might build their own business. Another might work three days a week because that’s what works for them and their other commitments. Someone might step away from senior leadership because what they want from their career, or need from their life, has changed. None of that is lesser work; it isn’t a case of taking one rung up and then two rungs back down. 

There is enormous value in the practitioner who gives brilliant strategic counsel. There’s also enormous value in the person who writes the killer media statement, creates social content that actually connects with people, turns something complicated into a clear briefing, knows their specialist area inside out or simply delivers excellent work, day after day. 

When we talk about professional success predominantly through the language of seniority, leadership, influence and upwards progression, we inadvertently send messages about what, and who, we value most in our profession. In championing progression, we must not create a hierarchy of professional worth. If someone isn’t moving upwards, it does not mean for one second that they aren’t moving forwards. 

That matters for professional bodies too. If there is no single career journey that everybody is following, we can’t assume that members will want or need the same things throughout their professional lives. 

What somebody wants from their career at one point may look very different a few years later. They might want to take on more responsibility, deepen their expertise, start a business, move into a new specialism or simply get even better at the work they already do. As careers and lives change, what people need from their professional body will change too. 

Opening the door and welcoming new members into the CIPR will always matter. But joining is only the beginning of that relationship. The bigger challenge is continuing to give people reasons to want to stay as their careers develop and their needs change. 

More than 2,100 new members joined the CIPR in 2024, yet overall membership grew by just over 500 to 11,391. In 2025, membership reached a record 11,580, an increase of 189 members on the previous year. Those headline figures don’t give us a retention rate, and they don’t tell us why individual members join, stay or leave. 

But they do raise an important question: what sits beneath those headline membership numbers? Where and why are members leaving, and what could that tell us about what they need from the CIPR at different points in their professional lives? 

If a professional body is going to be a professional home, membership needs to keep earning its place in people’s professional lives, through every age, phase and stage of their careers. 

That doesn’t mean trying to provide everything for everyone all at once. It means recognising the breadth of the profession and the different directions a career can take, listening to what members need and being willing to respond as those needs evolve. 

That’s part of why I’m standing for CIPR President-Elect 2027. I want a CIPR that meets members where they are, now and in the future: a professional home where people can see themselves, their careers and their ambitions reflected, however those careers develop. 

These aren’t ideas I’ve arrived at on my own. They reflect what I’ve heard from members over many years as a CIPR volunteer, and even more loudly in the conversations I’ve had since announcing my candidacy. 

Perhaps the question we should be asking about career progression, then, isn’t simply: how do we help people climb the ladder? It’s: what does progress look like for you, and what would help you get there? 

Because there are many ways to build a successful career in PR. It’s time the way we talk about progression reflected them. 

Anne-Marie Lacey is standing for CIPR President-Elect. Voting opens on Wednesday 16 September 2026. Find out more about the candidates and the election here.