TL; DR: Product Owner & Product Manager Salary Report 2022
How do you compare? The Product Owner and Product Manager Salary Report 2022 is based on 500-plus replies from practitioners gathered globally during the 3rd and 4th quarter of 2022. Learn more about your Product Owner or Product Manager career opportunities for free.
By the way, the average salary of our participants is $91,000, with a standard deviation of roughly $49,400. In the complete report, you will find more detailed information; download your copy below.
🇩🇪 Zur deutschsprachigen Version: Product Owner & Produktmanager Gehaltsreport 2022.
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The Background of the Product Owner & Product Manager Salary Report
The Product Owner & Product Manager Salary Report 2022 is the first edition of this industry survey. This free report is based on the answers of 510 participants globally. If you are considering a career decision in 2023, maybe, whether you should join the industry as a junior Product Owner or Product Manager or move to a new organization or go independent, you will find the report's information beneficial.
But see for yourself by downloading your copy of the Product Owner & Product Manager Salary Report 2022. The download is a ZIP file also containing eleven high-resolution files of graphics included in the report:
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A Summary of the Findings of the Product Owner & Product Manager Salary Report 2022
How We Collected the Data, Demographics, Experience
We collected the data for this report from Mai 2022 to October 2022. Overall, 510 Product Owners and Product Managers participated in the survey. We employed an online questionnaire via Google Forms to gather the contributors’ answers.
The main acquisition channel was the Food for Agile Thought newsletter. We also distributed the survey link via blog posts and social media postings.
We started the survey with standardized instructions, providing further information on data usage and anonymity. Then, if the participants proceeded with the survey, they agreed to include their data in the analysis. There were no incentives for participating in our survey.
After a standard data-cleaning procedure, we computed descriptive statistics for all 34 survey questions. In addition, we investigated the relationship between several variables and the study participants’ salaries.
The participants are 68.0 % male and 30.6 % female. Most participants are between 30 and 39 (49.4 %) or 40 and 49 (28.8 %) years old. Another 10.6 % belong to the age group between 50 and 59 years.
The average salary of our participants is $91,000, with a standard deviation of roughly $49,400 – a lot of variance to explain in further analyses.
Participants’ Education and Agile Experience
Comparing our recent results with the Scrum Master Salary Report, the participant’s educational levels and backgrounds are similar. Most of the surveyed Product Owners and Product Managers either have a bachelor’s degree (40.0 %) or a master’s degree (35.7 %). In addition, they usually start their agile careers with technical/engineering backgrounds (44.3 %) or business degrees (25.5 %). Our sample is comparatively small in the proportion of other educational backgrounds, such as social sciences, natural sciences, arts, or medicine.
As a Product Owner, it is most likely you have prior work experience as a Project Manager (22.7 %), Business Analyst (21.8 %), or you come from another background not directly related to product development (29.6%).
Most of the participants of the Product Owner Salary Report 2022 either have practical experience as Product Owners of more than four years (52.7 %) or at least two to four years (25.7 %). In addition, they indicated significant transition experience (64.5%), and at least 37.3 % of them experienced or initiated a transition kickoff.
Unlike Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches, Product Owners and Product Managers usually hold only first-level agile certificates (42.9%), and quite a large proportion does not have any agile-related certificate (33.1 %).
Agile Work Environments
Among our participants, 39.2 % were Product Managers, and 48.8% were Product Owners. 92.4 % of them are employed directly at the respective organization. The participants` tenure level was more or less evenly distributed among the four categories “less than one year” (32.0 %), “one to two years” (23.3 %), “two to four years” (18.6 %), and “more than four years” (26.1 %).
Our participants usually worked in three to five teams (37.6 %). A quarter of them (34.4 %) had to divide their attention among more than ten teams.
All You Need Is a Bachelor’s Degree
The standard “get a master’s degree” mantra implies that the more you invest in your education, the higher your income. There are countless exceptions to this rule, and for the role of Product Owner, the exception could not be more accurate.
Looking at the salary distribution’s maximum, median, and mean values, there is no remuneration-induced need to invest more time and accomplish a master’s degree once you have your bachelor’s degree. Instead, as you will see in the subsequent sections, investing your time in different projects and closely examining the industry sector you are laboring in is much more beneficial.
Experience Is Key
Unsurprisingly, the salary increases as Product Owners and Product Managers gain experience and reach intermediate and senior levels. From our point of view, what is surprising is the median difference between junior-level income and senior-level income. A difference of roughly $40,000 is a valid argument to cope with the troubles that may stress you in your day-to-day business. We also highlight that the more senior you become, the higher the salary distribution spreads. So, besides the mere experience as a Product Owner or Product Manager, there are other aspects to consider, e. g. the number and complexity of previous projects you were involved in.
Both the number and type of previous projects matter when it comes to defining your salary. For example, the more projects you were responsible for as a Product Owner or Product Manager, the more complex those projects were, the higher the expected salary tended to be. However, a limited number of smaller projects provide opportunities to develop your knowledge and skills and prepare you for more complex tasks.
The Top Ten Earners
Of course, comparing oneself to the median scores in the respective category is much more realistic. However, who wouldn’t have looked at the top income group to understand the upper limit?
Therefore, we identified the top ten earners in our dataset and their characteristics. They:
- Represent the gender distribution of our general sample: three females and seven males.
- Are between 30 and 40 years of age.
- Are Product Managers (5 out of 10) or work in other related roles.
- Work in the United States.
- Work in the business/finance or the technical/engineering sector.
- Work at organizations where an agile transition is in the beginning/ongoing.
- Usually have a bachelor’s degree. (The top ten represent the full range of degrees, though.)
- Have particular combinations of agile certificates or first level certificate.
- Were responsible for more than ten complex or large-scale projects before their recent position.
The Conclusion
What are the most interesting findings of the Product Owner & Product Manager Salary Report 2022? My pick is as follows:
- For Product Owners and Product Managers, hands-on experience trumps a formal education concerning your career.
- Earning industry-acknowledged certificates is less critical than having an outstanding track record.
- The average salary of the participants in the survey is $91,000 which exceeds the comparable Scrum Master and agile coach remuneration by about 10 percent.
- A regression analysis of the sample reveals no statistically significant gender-based differences in remuneration.
- It is common to work on ten or more projects.
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