How Copywriting Became a Multidisciplinary Role

When I started working as a copywriter, the job was relatively easy to explain. Other than the occasional questions about trademarks and intellectual property (copyright, anyone?), the role had fairly defined tasks. A client gave you a brief, you did the research, and you wrote the copy. Depending on the project, you might contribute ideas or question the brief, but writing was very much the job.

Over the years, I’ve watched that remit get wider. These days, a copywriting project can involve messaging, positioning, audience research, SEO, customer journeys, analytics, content strategy and performance (to name a few). Copywriters work alongside designers, developers, marketers, product teams and senior stakeholders. And now, of course, we’re expected to know our way around AI as well.

Most of the projects I take on nowadays begin before there’s even a finished brief. Clients want help deciding what they need to say, which messages matter, and how everything fits together before any of the writing starts.

What I wanted to know was, whether this was just my experience, or if it reflected a wider change in the profession. So, earlier this year, I analysed 230 copywriting job adverts published across the UK and Europe as part of my research for The Modern Copywriter report. What I found was a profession that employers increasingly define through a much broader set of responsibilities.

Strategy appeared in 59.1% of the adverts. AI appeared in 57.8%. Employers regularly asked copywriters to collaborate across teams, own projects, optimise their work and contribute to commercial outcomes. Specialist capabilities ranging from SEO and CRM to UX and analytics appeared throughout the dataset. Yet one thing hadn’t changed. Writing remained at the centre of every role I analysed.

Writing Is Still the Foundation of a Copywriter’s Role

For all the extra skills employers now expect from copywriters, the most consistent requirement in the research was still the most obvious one – the ability to write.

Across the 230 adverts, employers were looking for people who could write clearly, adapt their tone for different audiences and produce copy across a range of formats. The exact requirements varied from one role to another, but writing remained the foundation. What has changed is everything that now goes along with it.

A copywriter might be expected to understand SEO, interpret performance data, contribute to a customer journey or work with product and design teams. They might have responsibility for messaging across a campaign, managing stakeholders or using AI to support parts of their workflow. In many cases, the writing is the final expression of work that starts much earlier.

I’ve seen the same thing happen in my own projects. The actual writing might account for only part of the work. Before that comes research, conversations with stakeholders, decisions about audiences, and figuring out how the copy needs to support the wider objectives of the business.

This is why I think describing copywriting as a multidisciplinary role is useful. It puts more responsibility on the writer to understand the context behind the words.

Strategy Has Become Just as Important as the Execution

One of the most interesting findings from the research was how often strategy appeared in copywriting roles. Of the advert analysed, 59.1% explicitly mentioned strategy. In fact, strategy appeared slightly more often than AI, which was mentioned in 57.8%.

The strategic responsibilities varied between roles. Some employers wanted copywriters to contribute to messaging and positioning. Others mentioned campaign planning, customer journeys, content planning or wider business objectives. The common thread was that copywriters were being asked to think beyond the individual piece of copy.

Indeed, earlier in my career, I’d typically receive a brief and work from there. These days, I’m much more likely to be involved in defining the messaging before the writing starts. Sometimes that means interviewing stakeholders or customers. Sometimes it means working out the value proposition or deciding which messages deserve the most prominence. Increasingly, clients are asking, “What should we be saying?”

Writing and strategy are becoming more closely connected, particularly as copywriters become more senior. My research found that junior roles tended to focus on writing and delivery within established frameworks. At senior level, employers placed greater emphasis on messaging, business objectives, editorial leadership and strategic planning.

It suggests that career progression in copywriting increasingly involves developing the judgement behind the words, alongside the ability to write them.

Copywriters Are Working Across More Areas of the Business

The broader remit of the copywriter is reflected in the number of people we’re now expected to work with. Across the job adverts, copywriters were regularly asked to collaborate with product managers, designers, CRM teams, developers, sales teams, legal departments and senior stakeholders. The work itself crossed into areas such as product launches, customer onboarding, lifecycle communications and UX.

This makes sense when you consider how many parts of a business rely on language. A website might involve marketing, design and development teams. A product launch could bring together sales, product and brand. A regulated business may need legal or compliance input before a single line goes live. The copywriter usually sits somewhere in the middle of all this.

In my own client work, it has become quite normal to interview several people from different parts of an organisation before I start writing. In fact, I’ve started offering this as a separate deliverable, in the form of a messaging and positioning workshop. Each person brings a different perspective on the business, its customers and what matters most. Part of the job is working out which information is useful, where different viewpoints overlap and what the audience needs to know.

The research suggests employers increasingly expect copywriters to take responsibility for that process. Stakeholder collaboration appeared as one of the most common complementary skills in the dataset, mentioned in 21% of adverts. Project management appeared in 14%.

That puts communication skills in a slightly different context. Being a good copywriter has always meant knowing how to communicate with an audience. Increasingly, it means knowing how to communicate with the people behind the copy too.

Ownership Extends Beyond Words

Another pattern that stood out in the research was the language employers used to describe responsibility. Job adverts regularly asked copywriters to own projects, lead initiatives, manage stakeholders, define messaging and influence decisions. In many roles, responsibility extended from the initial brief through to delivery, review and optimisation.

That last part is significant. Traditionally, a copywriter might hand over the finished copy and move on to the next project. Many of the roles I analysed expected the writer to stay involved after publication, using performance data, customer feedback or campaign results to improve the work.

There was a commercial dimension to this too. Terms like acquisition, engagement, conversion, retention, growth and revenue appeared throughout the adverts. Employers were connecting copy with measurable business objectives, particularly in digital, SaaS and ecommerce roles.

Again, I’ve seen this reflected in client work. Delivering the copy is often one stage in a longer process. A website may go through stakeholder reviews and user testing. Messaging may need refining once it is applied across different channels. Content can be revisited once there is enough performance data to see what’s working.

For copywriters, that creates a greater degree of accountability. You’re being asked to think about what happens to the work once it leaves the document. It moves the role closer to something I noticed in the research – ownership of the communication itself.

AI Is Another Addition to the Copywriter’s Toolkit

It would be difficult to talk about the changing role of the copywriter without mentioning AI. It appeared in 57.8% of the job adverts I analysed, making it one of the most common requirements in the entire dataset.

What interested me was how employers talked about it. Most wanted people who could use the technology as part of their everyday work, for tasks such as research, ideation, drafting, optimisation and workflow support. Very few asked for advanced AI expertise. Specialist roles involving areas such as prompt writing and AI evaluation existed, but they represented a much smaller part of the market.

This puts the current debate about AI and copywriting into perspective. There’s been plenty of discussion about whether AI will replace copywriters. The job adverts suggest employers are taking a much more practical view. They’re incorporating AI into the role alongside the other skills they already expect.

So, we might surmise that AI isn’t replacing strategy, stakeholder management, SEO, research, analytics or commercial thinking in these job descriptions. It’s joining them. In many cases, employers appear to see competent AI use as another part of the copywriter’s working toolkit.

For me, that’s one of the more useful findings from the research. AI may be the most talked-about development affecting copywriting, but it’s part of a much broader expansion in what the job involves.

What Multidisciplinary Copywriting Means

There is a potential problem with all of this. Look at the range of skills appearing in copywriting job adverts and you could come away thinking that every copywriter now needs to be a strategist, SEO specialist, analyst, project manager, UX writer and AI expert rolled into one. But I don’t think this is what the research is suggesting.

The mix of skills changed considerably from one advert to another. SEO appeared in 14% of roles, analytics in 10%, UX writing and content design in 8.7%, and CRM and lifecycle marketing in 15%. Specialist job titles included UX Copywriter, Product Copywriter, Conversion Copywriter and Lifecycle Copywriter. Different businesses clearly need different things from their copywriters.

A SaaS company may want someone who understands product messaging and customer journeys. An ecommerce business might place greater emphasis on conversion and performance. An agency copywriter could move between several clients, sectors and formats in the same week. So, I don’t think becoming multidisciplinary means trying to become an expert in every adjacent discipline.

For me, it means the boundaries around copywriting have become less rigid. Writers are being brought into more conversations, working across more functions and taking responsibility for a wider part of the communication process. The specialisms may differ, but the underlying direction is remarkably consistent – writing remains the core skill, with a much broader professional remit around it.

Where Do These Developments Leave Copywriters?

If the role is becoming more multidisciplinary, what does that mean for copywriters at the early stages of their career, or those looking to develop?

Well, the research suggests that writing ability remains the starting point. What changes with experience is the level of responsibility that surrounds it. Junior roles tended to focus more heavily on writing, attention to detail and learning within established frameworks. At mid-level, employers expected greater independence, stakeholder management and responsibility for campaigns and projects.

Senior copywriters were more likely to contribute to messaging, business objectives, mentoring, editorial leadership and strategic planning. At Lead and Head level, the emphasis moved further into governance, team management and commercial accountability.

For me, this is one of the more encouraging findings in the report. Copywriting has sometimes been treated as a fairly narrow career path. You start as a junior copywriter, work your way up to mid-level, then senior, with the main difference being the complexity of the work you’re trusted to write, or the number of people you manage.

But the job adverts paint a broader picture. Career progression can mean becoming more involved in the thinking that happens before the writing starts and taking greater responsibility for what happens afterwards. It can mean contributing to positioning, working directly with senior stakeholders, leading projects or developing expertise in an adjacent discipline.

After more than 15 years working professionally as a copywriter, I spend far more time on messaging and strategy than I did earlier in my career. The writing is still there, but there’s a lot more thinking that goes into it. Perhaps that’s the best way to describe what has happened to copywriting – the professional role has become much bigger.