Writing appeared in almost two-thirds of the communication job advertisements analysed. AI appeared in 4.5%. Search revealed an equally interesting divide between content and public relations roles.
If AI is reshaping communication work, employers were still asking for one skill far more than any other in early 2024:
Writing.
I analysed communication-related advertisements drawn from 123,849 LinkedIn job postings listed between 24 March and 19 April 2024. An initial screen identified 948 communication-related records, with 946 advertisements forming the final classified sample across five role families.
Writing and editing appeared in 64.2% of those advertisements.
AI and automation appeared in 4.5%.
Analytics and measurement sat much higher at 32.7%, while search and discoverability appeared in 11.8%.
This early-2024 LinkedIn sample captures a profession already adding new digital capabilities while still valuing established communication craft.
One finding, however, deserves particular attention.
Search appeared far more often in content roles than PR roles
Search and discoverability appeared in 25.0% of content and editorial advertisements.
Among public relations and public affairs advertisements, the figure was only 1.5%.
That is a 23.5 percentage-point difference.
The finding does not tell us which profession should own search. It shows where employers in this sample were explicitly placing search-related requirements.
That raises an important question for communication and reputation teams.
If people increasingly encounter organisations through search results, how much should communicators understand about discoverability?
A communication manager may never need to become a technical SEO specialist. Some working knowledge of how organisational information is found, structured and measured can still help connect reputation work with content, web and digital teams.
AI was visible, although still uncommon
AI and automation appeared in 43 of the 946 advertisements, or 4.5%.
The figure is useful because of when the data were collected.
By March and April 2024, generative AI was already receiving substantial professional attention. Its relatively low appearance in job advertisements therefore provides an early baseline for how quickly employer language had begun to change.
A later replication could show how much that figure has moved and which communication roles are adopting AI requirements fastest.
The profession was widening around a strong core
The wider skill pattern tells a useful story.
Writing led at 64.2%. Leadership and collaboration appeared in 46.3%, strategic communication and messaging in 40.4%, social media in 39.6%, research and audience insight in 37.3%, and analytics and measurement in 32.7%.
The advertisements also showed different emphases across communication specialisms. Content roles leaned heavily towards writing, internal and change communication towards strategy and stakeholder management, marketing and brand roles towards social media, while public relations and public affairs showed the strongest media-relations profile.
This suggests that employers continued to distinguish between communication specialisms while expecting some capabilities to travel across roles.
The scholarly study brings those capabilities together in a provisional Digital Authority Skills Framework:
Communication Craft → Relational Authority → Digital Distribution → Intelligence & Automation
The four areas connect writing and strategy with relationships, digital distribution, analytics and emerging AI capability. The framework is proposed for further testing and is not presented as a validated competency model.
For professionals and students, the practical question is becoming clearer:
Can you write clearly, build trust, help information get found, understand what the data is telling you and use emerging technology responsibly?
The visual report below explores the full skill breakdown, differences across communication roles and the proposed Digital Authority Skills Framework.