Product managers exist to keep teams on track, projects in scope and to identify the best and most efficient ways of designing and delivering a product.
In this article we'll tell you about what a product manager does within their role, and some of the best steps you can take to become a product manager:
Overview
- Salary: Product managers can earn from £20,000 to well over £100,000 depending on experience (prospects.ac.uk)
- Working hours: A product manager’s hours can vary depending on the product they are delivering. Standard office hours, 9am to 5pm, 35-40 hours a week, can be expected. However, there may be times where they work longer hours, approaching deadlines and key dates.
- Industries and working environments: Product managers are desired in all sorts of modern industries. Marketing agencies, product design teams, FinTech and MedTech are all in need of product managers. Wherever an industry needs to deliver a product to a customer, a product manager can usually be found.
- You don’t need a degree to become a product manager – however most employers will find a degree desirable. The most important thing you need is experience in the industry that you want to manage a product in.
What is a product manager?
Product managers are responsible for the delivery of a product to an end user. This could be customers from the public, or business clients. In either case, product managers have the knowledge and experience to ensure that whatever they’re selling is fit for purpose.
There are several different responsibilities that a product manager has whenever they’re delivering a product.
What skills are needed to be a product manager?
There are many skills that will help you succeed as a product manager:
- People and communication skills. Organising a team, or multiple teams, requires a lot of skill. You need to be good at understanding people's needs and facilitating work between multiple different teams.
- Organisation skills. You’ll be balancing a lot of ongoing projects to achieve results and meet deadlines. You’ll need to be good at managing all of your different projects and ensuring that realistic timelines are maintained and deadlines are met.
- Budgeting skills. You might be working with different external agencies or products – these will cost your employer money. You need to be good at ensuring you’re getting the best value from your purchases, and that your expenditure is always within budget.
- Problem solving skills and good initiative. New challenges will come up a lot as you’re managing different projects and people. You’ll need a talent in navigating these issues while still achieving expectations from your teams and other stakeholders.
How to get into product management
There isn’t a direct entry route into product management like there are other jobs. A lot of it depends on your experience within a given field, and how much knowledge you have about your chosen product or industry.
For example, a Web Product Manager is expected to have experience in designing, developing and producing content for a website. This gives them a good amount of knowledge and experience in all the different facets of a website. This experience and knowledge is essential when working with suppliers, team members and stakeholders – to ensure that you understand all the different moving parts of the full system at work.
We recommend the following steps on your journey to becoming a product manager:
