Inbound

January 6, 2026

The HubSpot Admin Skillset for 2026: What You Need to Know Now

HubSpot admins are no longer just system stewards; they’re architects of scale, personalization, and growth. And as Kyle Jepson reminded us at INBOUND 2025, the skills that made admins successful in the past aren’t enough for where HubSpot is headed next.

Jepson’s session was a rapid-fire tour of new features, pro-level tactics, and thoughtful strategy for navigating a more powerful HubSpot platform.

Whether you’re brand new or a seasoned admin, these are some of the skills you need now to keep your teams moving fast and working smart in 2026, straight from one of the best teachers in the HubSpot universe.

1. Build Personalized CRM Experiences at Scale

Admins now have significant control over how record pages are structured and who sees what. HubSpot's layout editor lets you define conditional views by lifecycle stage, team role, or any property value, giving each user the context they need.

Beyond conditional visibility, admins can now leverage multiple view types for index pages: board view (now available for contacts and companies, not just deals), calendar view for date-based planning, and report view that lets you analyze filtered data without leaving the page (live or in public beta, depending on your portal).

What to do now:

Customize record views (contacts, companies, deals, tickets) using conditional logic
Create different tab or card layouts based on team, deal stage, or customer type
Set up board, calendar, or report views for more visual ways to work with your data

2. Master the New Data Hub and Enrichment Features

Data enrichment and quality tools previously gated behind Operations Hub are now available to all paid HubSpot tiers. That means admins everywhere can keep their databases cleaner, smarter, and better segmented.

What to do now:

Use the Data Quality dashboard regularly to monitor for duplicates, gaps, and inconsistencies.
Run enrichment and data quality scans across contacts and companies (manual or continuous, depending on your Data Hub tier).

3. Automate Smarter with Action Sets and Governance

If you’ve been copying the same workflow steps again and again, it’s time to change that. Jepson championed action sets: reusable workflow blocks you can drop into any new automation. And with required properties, you can enforce consistency and reduce mistakes as teams scale.

What to do now:

Turn frequently used workflow sequences into reusable action sets.
Define required properties that must be filled out before a workflow can be created.

4. Embrace Marketing Studio as Your Campaign Command Center

Marketing Studio replaces the legacy campaign tool with something far more collaborative and visual. Think drag-and-drop canvas, sticky notes, and cross-functional collaboration all built directly into HubSpot.

What to do now:

Use the Marketing Studio canvas to plan your next campaign visually, mapping and organizing assets, and connecting actions.

5. Segment and Customize Based on CRM Data

With expanded conditional logic and CRM customization, admins can configure record layouts that adapt based on CRM properties like deal stage, lifecycle stage, and enriched data while continuing to use those same properties to power dynamic workflows.

That same property-driven logic also extends beyond layouts into operational controls inside Service Hub. For Service Hub admins, a new capability is SLA stage-based pausing: pause the clock when tickets move to "Waiting on customer" to prevent unfair SLA violations when you're blocked by the customer's response.

What to do now:

Use segmentation tools and enriched data to build dynamic user views.
Apply conditional visibility settings to CRM layouts so that each user sees only what they need.
Configure SLA pausing rules for Service Hub workflows

6. Monitor Data Changes Before They Become Problems

The "Analysis" tab inside the data model gives you a retroactive view of changes across contacts, companies, deals, and more, helping you catch mistakes before they become emergencies.

What to do now:

Add a reminder to review the Analysis and Limits tabs at least monthly.
Investigate unexpected spikes in contact creation, associations, or workflow activity.

7. Support Content Operations with Remixing and Smart Tools

Admins don’t need to write content from scratch, but they can empower teams to reuse, remix, and scale what’s already working. Content Remix (a Content Hub feature) lets you take one blog post and instantly spin up emails, social posts, and even supporting visuals.

“No more staring at a blank page. Just take what you've got and repurpose it and expand it and promote it.” — Kyle Jepson

What to do now:

Try out Content Remix with a high-performing blog, video, or podcast.
Use the drag-and-drop campaign planner to visualize how remixed content fits into broader strategy.
Experiment with the video editing tools built into Content Hub for captioning and branding

TAKEAWAYS

From more control over data, to flexible automation, to AI-supported content tools, the latest HubSpot product updates were built with admins in mind.

To stay ahead in 2026, admins must embrace:

Personalization powered by CRM logic and segmentation
Automation frameworks that scale without chaos
A data strategy that’s proactive, not reactive
AI tools that support smarter content workflows

Watch Jepson’s full session:

The HubSpot Admin Skillset for 2026: What You Need to Know Now

1. Build Personalized CRM Experiences at Scale

2. Master the New Data Hub and Enrichment Features

3. Automate Smarter with Action Sets and Governance

4. Embrace Marketing Studio as Your Campaign Command Center

5. Segment and Customize Based on CRM Data

6. Monitor Data Changes Before They Become Problems

7. Support Content Operations with Remixing and Smart Tools

TAKEAWAYS