The IPA's latest Bellwether figures came out on 15th October, and the number at the top of the page was +14.3%, the best reading for marketing budgets in over two years.

It reads like a cheque being written. Decision Marketing's write-up of the figures has 25.6% of panellists raising their marketing budgets and 11.3% cutting them.

That net balance is up from +6.9% last quarter. It's the third quarterly increase in a row. And every one of the seven categories the survey tracks was revised upwards.

I read the category table twice, because the order of it matters more than the headline.

Where is the extra money actually going?

PR came top with a net balance of +15.3%, the strongest in the survey's history. Events were right behind at +15.1%, and sales promotion jumped to +13.1% from under 1% the quarter before. Main media rose to +9.8%, with video at a two-year high.

Now look at what the three leaders have in common.

PR, events and promotions are the parts of marketing that eat people. Nobody runs a trade show, a media relations push or a retailer promotion from a dashboard on their own. And each of them needs someone senior enough to decide what gets done and what gets dropped when the plan meets a real calendar.

That's my reading, not the survey's.

The report says nothing about staffing at all. But money tends to arrive faster than the team to spend it, and I'd bet a fair few budgets approved this month have a gap in the org chart sitting right underneath them.

Why are marketers still gloomy if budgets are rising?

Because the IPA Bellwether Report has a split personality. Industry-level sentiment is still negative, at -20.3%, with 34.6% of panellists pessimistic about their sector and only 14.3% optimistic. At company level it's close to flat at -2.7%. Nobody in the panel is throwing a party, and plenty of them are still spending.

So people are spending more while telling the survey they don't trust the weather.

My guess is that budget holders behave this way when the money has been agreed but nobody wants to be the one who commits it too early.

And the forward view is cooler than the quarter just gone. S&P Global Market Intelligence, whose panel the Bellwether is built on, now expects UK adspend to grow by 1.3% next year, down from the 2.3% it pencilled in before. Its forecast for the current year went the other way, up to 2.8%.

Put those side by side and you get a window. The cash is loosening now, and the forecasters think the tailwind fades.

We wrote about the budget line that escaped the investment freeze at the start of September, when the previous quarter's figures came out.

How long does it take to get a marketing director in the building?

Longer than the budget cycle, nearly every time. In our experience a senior marketer who's doing well rarely sits on the market, and many of them are on a notice period of three months. Add the search itself, a couple of interview rounds and an offer that needs a conversation or two, and a role opened today can easily mean a start date in the spring.

So the question of when to hire a marketing director has an uncomfortable answer. If the budget is approved in October and the hire starts in April, half the year's money has already been spent by whoever happened to be holding the pen.

I'm not saying every business needs a marketing director. Plenty are better served by a strong head of marketing with a small team, and some should buy in fractional leadership first. Both are sensible routes. But the point is only that someone has to be named, and the sooner the better.

Whichever shape you pick, the lead time doesn't shrink because the budget got bigger.

What should the new hire have run before?

I'd spend an hour on this before a job advert goes anywhere. A brand-heavy marketer and an events-heavy marketer are different hires, and a job title won't tell you which one you're talking to. Someone who has spent five years commissioning creative may never have sat through a venue walkthrough or argued a sponsorship fee down.

So decide this month which of the growth areas you're actually going to spend in. PR, events, promotions, video. Then write down the last thing you'd want your new leader to have run in that area, and make it the first interview question.

It sounds obvious.

Most briefs we see describe a seniority level and a salary band, then leave the discipline to be sorted out later. That works when budgets are flat and the new person can ease in over a quarter or two. It works badly when the money is already moving and the board expects to watch it land.

What does waiting cost while the seat is empty?

More than the salary you didn't pay.

I'd expect any agency you lean on in the gap to bill at a rate set by someone who knows your approved budget is sitting there. Projects that need a decision-maker slip by a week at a time, and events in particular don't wait, because the venue and the date are fixed. And a promotion that misses its retail window doesn't get a second go next month either.

There's a quieter cost too, because your existing team watches a budget grow with no leader named against it, and I'd expect the good ones to start wondering whether the role will go to them or to a stranger. Some of them quietly check what else is out there.

The money held up, which was never the doubtful part. Who gets to spend it was always the harder question. And right now there's a room somewhere full of people nodding at a number. I'd get a name against that money before anyone spends a penny of it.

If you'd like to talk it through, our marketing recruitment team will tell you honestly how long a search like yours is likely to take.