B2B Growth Specialist

A B2B growth specialist works on finding and winning more business customers for a company that sells to other companies (B2B means "business to business") rather than to the public. The job sits between marketing and sales: you run campaigns, outbound outreach and experiments designed to generate leads — people at target companies who might buy — and then measure which of those activities actually produced revenue. It's most common at software and tech companies, agencies and other subscription-based businesses, where the role usually reports into a head of growth, marketing or revenue.

Starting salary: £25k–£35k
Live graduate jobs: 1 open now
Main way in: Direct entry into a junior growth, growth marketing or demand…
They usually ask for: A degree in almost any subject

Approximate graduate salary

Typically around £25,000–35,000 to start, though this varies widely. London and venture-funded software companies sit at the upper end or above it; agencies, smaller firms and roles outside the South East often start lower. Some roles add a bonus or commission linked to pipeline or revenue targets, which can be a meaningful part of total pay in sales-adjacent versions of the job.

What you'd actually do

Building and cleaning target lists of companies and contacts using data tools and LinkedIn, then working out who the right person to approach is at each one (the 'decision maker' or the person with the budget)
Writing and sending outbound email and LinkedIn sequences, then rewriting subject lines and opening paragraphs based on what got replies
Running paid campaigns or supporting them — usually LinkedIn ads, Google Search ads, or sponsoring newsletters and events — and checking cost per lead against what leads are actually worth
Setting up landing pages, forms and automated email follow-ups in a marketing automation tool, and making sure the leads flow correctly into the CRM (customer relationship management system, where sales activity is recorded)

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Pulling numbers into a spreadsheet or dashboard: how many leads, how many turned into meetings, how many into deals, and which channel each came from
Designing and running small experiments — a new audience segment, a different offer, a webinar, a case study — and reporting whether the test worked or not
Sitting in with sales colleagues or listening to recorded calls to hear the objections prospects raise, then feeding that language back into campaigns and website copy

How graduates get in

Direct entry into a junior growth, growth marketing or demand generation role after a placement, internship or a year or two in a related job — this is the most common route, as very few employers run formal graduate schemes with this exact title
Starting as a sales development representative (SDR) or business development representative (BDR) — the person who does outbound prospecting and books meetings for sales — and moving across into growth once you understand the customer and the pipeline. A very well-trodden path in UK SaaS (software sold on subscription)
Starting in a broader marketing executive or digital marketing role, especially at an agency, and specialising into B2B growth later
Graduate schemes at larger technology, telecoms, professional services or media companies that include marketing or commercial rotations, from which you can land in a growth team

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Building demonstrable evidence yourself — running ads for a small business, growing a newsletter, freelancing on outreach campaigns, or doing a student society's marketing — and using that as the portfolio that gets you shortlisted. Unusual as a sole route but genuinely effective in small companies and startups
Moving in from an adjacent analytical role (data analyst, revenue operations) where you already know the CRM and reporting side, and picking up the campaign craft on the job

What employers ask for

A degree in almost any subject — this role is rarely subject-specific. Marketing, business, economics, psychology and communications come up often, but so do humanities and science degrees; employers care more about evidence you can write clearly and reason with numbers
Grades are usually less of a filter than in law or finance. Some larger employers screen at 2:1; many startups and agencies do not look at classification at all and judge on a task or portfolio
Some practical evidence of commercial work: an internship, a placement year, freelance work, a side project, or a student enterprise. Most employers want to see you have done something rather than only studied it
Comfort with spreadsheets is close to universal. Familiarity with a CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot or similar) and basic analytics (Google Analytics, a dashboard tool) is often asked for, though many employers will train you

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Professional qualifications are optional rather than expected. CIM (Chartered Institute of Marketing) or Google/HubSpot/LinkedIn platform certifications can help a CV stand out but are not gatekeepers
Many applications include a practical exercise — draft an outbound email sequence, critique a landing page, or analyse a funnel spreadsheet. Being ready for this matters more than interview polish

Skills that matter

Writing short, persuasive copy

Most of the output is emails, ad text, landing pages and LinkedIn posts aimed at busy professionals who will give you a sentence or two of attention.

Working with data in spreadsheets

You constantly need to join up campaign numbers with CRM data to work out which activity actually produced revenue rather than just clicks.

Understanding how a sales pipeline works

B2B deals involve several people and often months of consideration, so you need to know what happens to a lead after it leaves your hands or you will optimise for the wrong thing.

Experiment design and honest measurement

Growth work is largely a sequence of tests, and the value you add depends on being able to say clearly whether something worked, didn't, or was too small a sample to tell.

Learning tools quickly

The stack of CRM, email automation, enrichment and analytics tools changes often, and nobody will give you a full training course on each one.

Comfort being told no

Outbound outreach has low response rates by nature and most experiments fail, so the job rewards people who treat that as information rather than rejection.

Putting these on a CV? We counted which skills 12,914 live graduate adverts ask for, and what to do with the answer — part of our application advice.

Where it leads

Junior or associate growth/demand generation role: executing campaigns and lists under someone else's plan, learning the tools and the product. Usually the first year or two.
Growth specialist or growth marketing manager: owning a channel or a segment end to end, setting your own targets and budget, and being accountable for pipeline generated. Timelines vary a lot — faster in small startups, slower in large structured marketing departments.
Senior growth manager or head of demand generation: planning the mix of channels, managing budget and sometimes a small team or agency relationships.
From there the paths fork. Some go deeper into marketing leadership (head of marketing, CMO in a smaller company); some move sideways into revenue operations, product marketing or sales leadership; some move into consultancy, agency work or a growth role at a venture-backed startup.
A meaningful number use the skills to start or join very early-stage businesses, since lead generation and commercial experimentation transfer directly to founding a company.

What people get wrong

“It's a marketing job, so it's mostly about creativity, branding and social media.”

B2B growth is far more numerical and sales-adjacent than consumer marketing. A lot of the week is spreadsheets, list-building, CRM hygiene and arguing about attribution — which channel gets credit for a deal.

“'Growth' means working on viral campaigns and big audience numbers.”

In B2B the audiences are often tiny — sometimes a few hundred companies in the whole UK that could realistically buy. Success can look like twelve good conversations, not a million impressions.

“You need a marketing degree or a formal qualification to be taken seriously.”

Employers in this space weight demonstrable work heavily. A portfolio of campaigns you actually ran, even small ones, usually beats a certificate, and the degree subject rarely comes up after the first screen.

“It's a safe, predictable office job with clear monthly tasks.”

The role is usually tied to a pipeline or revenue target, the tactics change when they stop working, and in startups the job description can be rewritten mid-year. It suits people who are comfortable with ambiguity.

Where this varies

The title is used very loosely and you should read the advert carefully rather than the job title. At a startup, "B2B growth specialist" can mean something close to an outbound sales role: cold emailing, booking meetings, carrying a target. At a larger company it usually means demand generation marketing: budget, paid media, webinars, content and reporting, with sales handled by someone else. Agencies use the title for people who do this on behalf of client companies, which means more projects, more variety and more client management but less depth on any one product. Sector matters too — in software and tech the role is well established with defined tools and career ladders, while in manufacturing, professional services or industrial B2B it can be a newer, more improvised function with less structure and less budget. Finally, the degree of analytical work varies: some teams have a dedicated data or revenue operations function and you focus on campaigns, at others you are the person building the reports.

See all 1 live B2B Growth Specialist jobsFrom employers' own careers sites, updated daily Tailor your CV for this roleFree with an account, 3 a month

General guidance about the role across the UK market, not about any specific employer. Entry routes and requirements vary — always check the individual job advert.