Three-quarters of UK marketers think the UK will be in recession in 2009, while 70 believe the UK economy will worsen in the next 12 months, according to The Chartered Institute of Marketing’s latest Marketing Trends Survey.

Only 11 per cent of marketers remain optimistic that the UK economy will improve in the next 12 months.

But while one third of marketers are worried about their job prospects in the year ahead, nearly half are not, and two thirds of all those polled by Ipsos Mori for the survey believe that marketing is key to their organisation’s future prospects in the economic downturn.

David Thorp, director of Research and Information at The Chartered Institute of Marketing says “Marketers recognise that they have a key role to play in helping their organisations identify and exploit the opportunities an economic downturn brings. By creating real value for their organisations and measuring the effectiveness of their marketing activities, marketers can demonstrate clearly how indispensable they are to their organisation.”

Those most concerned about their own future are in organisations with turnover of under £1 million, where 42 per cent are worried about their job, and those working in the B2C sector (37 per cent). Only 17 per cent of marketers expect their organisation to be expanding the size of their marketing department, down sharply from the 30 per cent in the preceding Spring 2008 survey.

Those anticipating cuts in the number of marketing staff have risen from 10 per cent last time to 15 per cent now.

Marketing plans have already been significantly altered by half of marketers (49 per cent) as a result of the economic downturn. This rises to 60 per cent of marketers in the retail, distribution and leisure sectors, and 57 per cent in the financial and other service sector.