The Chartered Institute of Marketing's latest marketing trends survey, conducted by Ipsos Mori, reveals that 73% of marketers believe the UK will be in recession in 2009 and 70% believe conditions will worsen in the year ahead. This is the highest figure since the survey began and up 30% on this time last year.
However, not everyone is gloomy with 11% of marketers remaining optimistic that the UK economy will improve in the next 12 months.
The survey also reveals that there is a clear divide in what marketers think about the prospects for their own organisation based on their size.
Marketers in organisations with a turnover of less than £10m are much more confident about their own prospects than those working in organisations with a turnover of £10m or more.
In more encouraging news for the industry, two thirds of marketers agree that marketing is seen as key to their organisation's future prospects in the economic downturn.
Marketing plans have already been significantly altered by 49% of marketers, rising to 60% in the retail, distribution and leisure sector, and 57% in the financial and other services sector.
Despite the coming challenges, 47% of marketers are not worried about their job prospects in the year ahead, although one third say they are.
The people who are most concerned are those in organisations with turnover of under £1m, where 42% are worried about their job, and those working in the business-to-consumer sector, where 37% feel anxious.
Only 17% of marketers expect their organisation to be expanding the size of their marketing department -- down sharply from the 30% in the preceding spring 2008 survey. Those anticipating cuts in the number of marketing staff have risen from 10% last time to 15% now.
David Thorp, director of research and information at the Chartered Institute of Marketing, said: "Despite deep concern about the prospects for the UK economy, today's professional 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 how indispensable they are to their organisation."
A total of 1,259 marketing professionals from a broad cross-section of organisations completed the online questionnaire between October 2 and 27.