High Demand Jobs in Fashion for 2023

Are you planning to get into fashion this year? Maybe you have clear ideas about what fashion role is made for you or perhaps you are still undecided. Whatever the case, in this article we’ll see together the most high demand jobs in fashion for 2023. 

High Demand Jobs in Fashion for 2023

The fashion industry is made up of different career possibilities. Some of them have been around forever (think about the fashion designer), whilst some are new as they have been established with the rise of technology as well as new social and political conditions. 

An example is the careers related to social media and sustainability. Just over a decade ago, social media didn’t exist so the Social Media Manager was nowhere near a career. Although fashion has always been a polluting industry, the environmental impact of the industry has become something customers and companies really care about only recently. Hence why the demand for sustainable managers that once were really rare.

In order to understand what the most high-demand careers in fashion will be this year, it’s important to look at what are going to be the main themes that will define the fashion agenda in 2023. In the Glam Observer Report 2022 we discussed the most significant moments of the fashion industry as well as remarkable changes and opportunities that shaped fashion last year, which gives us a good baseline to consider for the year ahead.  Apparently, 2023 is forecast to be a regular year for the fashion industry after the pandemic and the Ukrainian war that shook the industry a lot, despite a potential recession happening in the US and Europe is in sight.  

Together with considering the social, economical and political conditions, what determines which fashion jobs will be on demand is also the region or the country. 

Fashion companies’ headquarters are mainly condensed in the fashion capitals: New York, London, Paris and Milan. The production sites of the majority of luxury brands including Chanel, Saint Laurent, Gucci, Dior, Prada among others, are located in the north of Italy more precisely in Tuscany, Veneto, Emilia Romagna. This means that what could be a high-demand job in Italy, could not be in the US. So if you are interested in a specific career in fashion, the location is something that you should take into consideration when filtering opportunities in your job search.  

Is right by considering this point, that’s how I’d like to introduce the first career in fashion that will be on demand this year. 

Product Developer

Product developers represent perfectly the example of how a high demand career changes according to the country.  In fact Product Developers are going to be high demand in Italy whilst they could not be as frequently requested in the US. Placed within the design and production departments of a fashion company, a product developer plans and develops fashion products from initial drawings to final samples. You can read more about this role here. However looking ahead to 2023, it’s important to not think about the role in a traditional way but to consider the changes and the new technology that has been developing.

3D software that lets brands design and prototype items digitally has been gaining momentum among fashion companies such as Timberland and Hugo Boss. These tools allow brands to save time and reduce waste by cutting back on physical samples. Kering, for example, said it’s still in the early days of scaling its use of 3D design but intends to keep expanding it this year. Its brands are now using it for products such as bags, shoes, small leather goods and carryover styles, it said. Therefore a Product Developer who works alongside the design team and with pattern makers following the development of a product from samples to the final products, will soon have to adapt to the new technology to do their job. 

Supply Chain Manager/ Production Planner / Buyers

Britain’s largest luxury label by sales Burberry, revealed in its July 2018 annual report that it burned about $37 million of unsold clothing and cosmetics. This news was all over social media.  That same year the company said that it would stop destroying unsold merchandise after this practice was damaging the brand’s image as many customers, particularly younger shoppers, are now more ethically and environmentally conscious.

Other luxury labels, including Richemont and Louis Vuitton, have been accused of destroying unsold watches and handbags so they cannot be bought at reduced prices. Managing the product assortment is a huge priority for the fashion industry that is investing resources and technologies to develop more accurate data to prevent producing more to keep profits up as well as avoid encountering sustainability issues or damaging the brand image if a product ends up being sold at half of the cost.  With the rise of eCommerce, another challenge for brands is to build a more efficient supply chain and mesh online and in-store systems so that the stock is no longer different. That’s why roles such as supply chain manager, production planner as well as buyers and merchandisers who are responsible of dealing with deciding stocks are going to play a significant role this year. 

Digital Communication Manager/ Social Media Managers

If before luxury brands had a mysterious aurea, the transparency brought by social media has led even the most luxury brands to have an online presence. The new generation of luxury customers is way younger compared to what they used to and they speak a digital language. If brands want to reach these new customers (and they want to) they have to adapt. Social media plays an essential role today as an effective way to build relationships and trust with customers. A brand is not even considered without a website, Instagram profile and most recently a TikTok one.

Companies are always on the hunt for fashion professionals specialized in each social media platform in order to reach the goal of meeting the customers online. That’s why Social Media Managers and Digital Communication Managers who build assets and campaign to deliver storytelling and connect with customers, are among the high demand jobs in fashon.  Social Media and Digital Managers need to develop skills in graphic design (learning how to use tools such as Photoshop, InDesign). As well as having a great knowledge of the social media landscape and understanding how to communicate effectively with customers. 

eCommerce Careers

Together with social media, the rise of the ecommercehas brought new careers as well as new work opportunities for more traditional roles that were already existing way before the online world was a thing in fashion. The growth of online sales has boomed during the pandemic. And while physical retail will play again an important role this year, brands will keep investing in the online division to reach even more customers globally. There will therefore be more open positions in e-commerce with vacancies for positions such as:

• digital merchandiser
• ecommerce manager
• online buyer

eCommerce Manager

An ecommerce manager is responsible for the online store of the brand. They manage the page ordering for all categories and markets;  Coordinates, uploads and checks product descriptions; Coordinates publication of products in line with marketing plan and business needs; Checks the flow of photo uploads; Gives products and galleries inputs for emails, social and other possible channels;

These online-related-careers can be found in every fashion company, from fast fashion to luxury ones. Something to keep in mind related to the online businesses, is that in order to build an ecommerce website, all the other traditional roles such as PR or stylist are still required. Think about styling the looks for the online store, there is an ecommerce Stylist for that. So I’d like to leave you with some food for your thought: working for a purely online retailer company such as Net-a-Porter or Zalando for example, doesn’t necessarily mean working in the ecommerce department, you can have a more traditional role: you can be a PR, graphic designer, marketing manager working at these online companies. 

Sourcing Manager

Sustainability has been on the forefront of fashion for the past several years. Companies are aware that consumers place importance on the environmental or social impact of the fashion they buy. And because purchase decisions are more and more driven by sustainability, the fashion industry invests in growing its team that can come up with these issues. Sustainability managers and team need a holistic approach to tackle an array of environmental and social factors, from carbon emissions to garment workers’ rights. 

In France, legislation expected in 2023 will require brands to add “carbon labels” to clothing and textiles, which will display an environmental “score” from A to E to help consumers make more informed purchase decisions.  So roles such as the Sourcing Manager will often be requested this year. The Sourcing Manager is responsible for identifying sustainable materials used and the products with sustainable claims, collect relevant certificates from mills upon shipment for all sustainable raw materials and validate certificates. 

SEO Expert

While social media have been playing a significant role in the growth of fashion businesses, organic growth brought by the old good online research marks a big opportunity for fashion companies and magazines. With most fashion magazines relying more on their website than print issues, the chance of getting more readers has been moved from the newsstands to Google. SEO, which stands for Search Engine Optimization, allows brands and online publications to get traffic from search results. If done correctly, an article, product or website can rank higher in the search results when someone does their online research using specific keywords, resulting in more sales or simply more readers for a magazine.

While paid advertising is used by marketing managers, organic strategies matter the most. That’s why there is a high demand for people who know SEO. SEO experts are hired inside the online division of fashion brands as well as at your favorite fashion magazines to write SEO-friendly articles, product descriptions and online pages. 

Digital Writers

If you are interested in getting a more traditional role such as becoming a fashion editor or writer, you should focus more on digital publications. Is more likely to get one of your articles published on Vogue.com than on the print issue. Online publications have less strict requirements and they publish several articles per days, so because they need more content than a print issue, they are more open to accept to work with writers even for just an article (as a freelance) or by becoming a digital writer. 

Second-hand companies

The careers mentioned above can be found in any traditional company. However there are some new companies that have caught on and have been developing in recent years, such as second-hand companies (Vestiarie Collective, The RealReal to name a few). Keep monitored the career pages of these companies, the second-hand market is predicted to be valued 218 billion dollars by 2026, so they will need to expand their team. 

Want help to get one of these roles? Register for this free masterclass here and I’ll teach you 3 strategies to land your dream role in fashion.