Product manager

Product managers are responsible for the life cycle of a product, ensuring it is planned, created and launched on time and to budget, is of high quality and meets the needs of its target audience as well as the business's objectives

You will manage a product's progress from concept to launch, ensuring that new products are made as efficiently as possible and that the people building them have access to the latest technologies and techniques.

You will also be involved in the product's ongoing development - listening to users, finding out what new features they want, and gathering and analysing their feedback and usage data. This helps you to make decisions about the future of the product - what will and won't be possible, which features to prioritise or to drop altogether - and to produce a product roadmap.

As a product manager, you may focus on the end users of your product. Alternatively, you could work as a technical product manager with more of a focus on the creation of the product itself. You'll need engineering and/or design skills for this type of role.

Responsibilities

As a product manager, you'll typically need to:

• take overall responsibility for the success of your product
• contribute towards product strategy and vision in line with the business's goals
• learn about users and a product's market
• research competitors and similar products, and analyse market trends
• collect and analyse user feedback to identify product requirements and priorities and steer the development process
• report on product performance and user feedback and implement any necessary changes
• create timelines and roadmaps for developing the product
• meet regularly with all stakeholders, including product designers, developers and analysts, as well as marketing, sales, customer service, finance and company heads to keep progress on track
• gather and evaluate ideas and opinions from users to work out the most valuable features to include in your product
• ensure product developers have the resources they need to keep the product on schedule and within budget
• anticipate and solve any problems that arise during the product creation or development
• manage one or more budgets
• plan new features and changes to a product taking into account a range of factors such as risks and opportunities
• demonstrate new ideas and features to stakeholders
• attend conferences and events related to a product or sector
• implement or support product launch marketing campaigns
• create and oversee development and project management processes
• inspire and enthuse colleagues and users of the product.

Salary

• Salaries for junior product managers typically range from £25,000 to £40,000.
• With experience, salaries can range from £50,000 to £80,000.
• Senior product managers can earn £70,000 to £90,000. The average salary for head of product roles is £110,000, with salaries for director of products and vice presidents (VP) in excess of this amount.

Salaries can vary significantly depending on your location, the industry you're based in, the importance of the product you're responsible for, and your employer. It will also depend on your skills, experience, performance and track record.

Other benefits may include performance-related bonuses, share options, pension and private healthcare insurance.

Income data from Intelligent People. Figures are intended as a guide only.

Working hours

Working hours are usually 9am to 5pm, although you may need to work longer hours to finish a project, such as a new feature launch.

Work outside of usual office hours may be necessary on occasion if your company has offices in other time zones as regular meetings and communication with all stakeholders is an essential aspect of the role.

Part-time and temporary contracts are rare. However, there may opportunities for flexible or hybrid working.

What to expect

• You'll have a lot of responsibility, especially if your company relies on the success of the product you manage. You will sometimes have to make difficult decisions about the future of the product.
• The role is mainly office based but you may need to travel regularly to meet with all the people who contribute to the product.
• You will work closely with a range of stakeholders, including designers and engineers, marketers and product users.
• Product management can be a challenging but rewarding career and you'll need knowledge of business, marketing, data analysis and technology, plus excellent communication and organisational skills to succeed.
• The broad range of skills required does mean that you'll almost certainly need around two years of relevant work experience to be considered for a product manager position.

Qualifications

There are no formal qualifications needed to become a product manager, although most employers prefer candidates with a degree (or equivalent professional qualification) in a business or marketing-related subject. For some roles, a technical or engineering background may be helpful.

If the focus of the role is technical product management, for example, an employer will usually ask for a degree related to their industry.

However, if the focus is on end users, then employers may ask for a marketing or market research qualification. There are degrees, university short courses and HNDs available in these subjects, as well as qualifications from professional bodies like the Market Research Society (MRS).

Experience and a great track record of successful product management are the most important factors for securing a job.

It's extremely unusual for an employer to recruit a product manager without at least two years' relevant experience. When starting out in your career, look for work in areas which have a lot of overlap with product management such as programming, sales and account management, marketing, market research, business analysis or project management. This will give you a platform either to work your way up within the organisation into a product management role, or to move to another employer looking for someone with your skills and experience.

Skills

You'll need to be:

• knowledgeable about your product's users and industry
• decisive, visionary and able to support your decisions with market research
• flexible, as you'll be working in-depth with different business functions
• a good collaborator, leader and diplomat
• an excellent project manager
• organised and able to work to deadlines and roadmaps
• a very strong and clear communicator, comfortable working with a variety of stakeholders at different levels of seniority and knowledge
• good at persuasion and negotiation
• able to analyse complex data and look for trends in the market and users' opinions and behaviour
• confident and able to challenge the status quo
• creative in finding solutions to problems
• fair and objective when making decisions.

Work experience

Experience and knowledge are both essential for getting a job as a product manager. Due to the high level of responsibility, employers usually prefer candidates to have some kind of record of commercial success, to come recommended by someone they trust, or to have worked in the company itself and built up a good relationship and reputation with the company's management.

Try to gain some experience in positions of responsibility. This could be leading a university society, taking part in business competitions and challenges, becoming a trustee for a charity or asking to lead on important projects during an internship, part-time job or voluntary position.

Product managers are experts in their product, so you should also try to use work experience as an opportunity to learn about the building, marketing and success of the types of products that interest you. For example, technical product managers are expected to have a good understanding of IT and how software is built in order to work well with the product developers. Internships, part-time jobs, work shadowing and volunteering in a sector that interests you are good ways of building the first-hand knowledge that a product manager needs.

All product managers need a good understanding of how businesses work and what makes them successful in their market. These skills are very similar to those of an entrepreneur, so starting a business, even if it's on a very small scale, can show employers that you're responsible, hardworking and knowledgeable about commerce.

You could also see if your university has any business, entrepreneurship, marketing or finance societies that you could join to work with and learn from other students.

Find out more about the different kinds of work experience and internships that are available.

Employers

You will find opportunities at any company which makes a product of some kind. Products include:

• technical products such as programs, apps and video games
• financial products such as credit cards, mortgages and savings accounts
• manufactured products including appliances, agricultural equipment, pharmaceuticals and toys.

However, the majority of product management positions in the UK are in tech organisations, where the products are apps or online services.

Many of the companies who hire product managers are in the private sector, although there are some not-for-profit and public sector employers, such as government departments, with product management openings.

You'll find the most vacancies on job sites that specialise in the tech, business and financial services industries. However, many employers will use general job sites too.

Look for job vacancies at:

• CWJobs
• Mind the Product
• ProductHired
• Women in Tech
• LinkedIn

Many employers use recruitment agencies to hire product managers as the required knowledge and skillset are not something that you can easily demonstrate solely with standard in-house screening techniques like assessment centres and psychometric tests.

Relevant agencies include:

• Intelligent People
• Michael Page

Networking and speculative applications might also help you get a job. As well as your knowledge and experience, employers will want to hear your ideas for the development of their products and any insights you have about the market they operate in.

Professional development

You'll need to keep your skills and knowledge up to date throughout your career to stay competitive. The training and professional development you'll receive will vary greatly depending on your employer. They will probably focus on developing your:

• knowledge of their sector and users through industry events, mentorship and by supporting self-led research
• organisational and project management skills through qualifications like PRINCE2 and training in different working methods like agile software development and Kanban
• presentation and communication skills through training courses and coaching.

There are certifications in product management available through some international professional bodies such as:

• Association of International Product Marketing and Management (AIPMM)
• International Software Product Management Association (ISPMA) - for technical product managers
• Product Development and Management Association (PDMA)

However, these won't usually be necessary for your professional development in UK organisations, though the resources and events they list may be useful during the early stages of your career.

Career prospects

If you're working for a large employer, you'll usually start your product management career as part of a product team, with either shared responsibility for a product, sole responsibility for one aspect of it or focusing on one part of product management such as marketing or development.

Early in your career it's unlikely that you'll be the only product manager in an organisation, unless they are a very small company, you have significant prior experience or come highly recommended by someone they trust.

After around five years you may find that you are ready to manage a small product team or move to being a loan product manager with more responsibility. You may need to complete some management training at this stage. Product team leaders will usually have job titles like senior product manager, product owner or head of product. If you're managing staff, you'll find that you have more input into the product strategy but some of your time will also be dedicated to line management duties.

After around ten years' working in product management, you may be in a position to look for work at an executive or board level, in roles such as vice president (VP) of product, chief operating officer, chief marketing officer or chief technology officer.

The broad range of duties in product management means that moving between different job functions is an option even at a senior level. You're also equipped with most of the knowledge and skills needed to start your own business, which is also an option for experienced product managers.