Does Marketing involve a lot of talking publicly?

Sales yes; typically you'll be pitching to potential clients and meeting with existing ones and so on.

Marketing, variable. A lot of the marketing is essentially the background of the sales team, creating the content and so on the sales team will use at events and meetings. Usually there is a lot of working with people within the company (and sometimes with contractors and so on) but it's not trying to sell things to them, rather than trying to come up with the best way to show off the business solutions your company provides. (My mum works in marketing at large intl corp )

Depends on the specific role within different organisations within marketing/sales divisions.

For example I have a friend in London who works as full time consultant in marketing in the City and earns a lot of money; she is involved in a lot of data analytics actually but she is also involved in closing of the deals with clients

Does she do a lot of public speaking or is it much background work?

"Public speaking" is kind of a vague term.

My mum has a lot of conference calls with her team, and with other teams they're supporting or being supported by. There is also a lot of email correspondence, and occasionally she has to go into the office for major project meetings.

So there is a lot of communication involved, but it's all internal; she has very little, if any, presentation or other responsibilities involving clients or the general public (although her work does end up being seen by/addressing both).

The former is fairly ubiquitous in most roles, and especially business. You can't just NOT talk to people, but these will be usually people you've worked with for a number of years, even if just tangentially. She doesn't often have to liaise with complete strangers.

I really want to pursue a career in Marketing/Sales but I have really bad social anxiety especially when it comes to giving presentations/talking in front of large bodies of people. I'm okay if there are about 4/5 people in the room but more than that I literally will panic days before and days after. Does Marketing involve a lot of this or should I just re consider and try find a job with less public speaking?

Thank you! I guess I should've made it a little clearer. I meant public speaking in regards to general public & doing presentations but I'm completely fine with talking to people within the organisation and clients, I just despise standing infront of people and talking (presentations etc). I'm actually a very sociable person when it comes to talking to people I'm familiar with or will be working with regularly just scares me when it's complete strangers! Thank you so much this helped me A LOT!

i want to do the same thing as you. And yeah it will involve a lot of public speaking to clients ect. I also have anxiety and know just how hard it can be to talk to people. But don't let anxiety get in the way of your dreams. I think you should pursue the career it may even make you a better speaker and more confident.