Account director vs project manager

The differences between account directors and project managers can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. Additionally, an account director has an average salary of $114,728, which is higher than the $91,578 average annual salary of a project manager.

The top three skills for an account director include account management, project management and work ethic. The most important skills for a project manager are project management, project scope, and customer service.

Account director vs project manager overview

	Account Director	Project Manager
Yearly salary	$114,728	$91,578
Hourly rate	$55.16	$44.03
Growth rate	5%	8%
Number of jobs	132,260	167,116
Job satisfaction	-	4.17
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 80%	Bachelor's Degree, 68%
Average age	46	47
Years of experience	8	-

What does an account director do?

An account director is responsible for managing client accounts, monitoring budgets, and sales forecasting. Their goal is to maintain stable account management strategies, meet clients' demands, develop healthy professional partnerships that would generate revenues, increase profitability, and achieve the organization's long-term goals objectives. Account directors supervise the account management staff, ensuring the project's successful completion with the highest efficiency and accuracy. An account director also plans training programs to maximize their performance and productivity, especially when dealing with deadlines and clients' requests.

What does a project manager do?

Project managers oversee a specific project related to the organization's business. They manage the whole project from inception to evaluation. They initiate planning with involved departments, follow-through on the plans, ensure smooth execution of the plans, and evaluate the project for further improvements should these be needed. In line with this, project managers also ensure that the project is cost-efficient and well within the budget. They also manage the different work teams involved in the project and ensure that things are running smoothly on this aspect as well.

Account director vs project manager salary

Account directors and project managers have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Account Director	Project Manager
Average salary	$114,728	$91,578
Salary range	Between $82,000 And $158,000	Between $64,000 And $129,000
Highest paying City	San Francisco, CA	San Francisco, CA
Highest paying state	New Jersey	California
Best paying company	BuzzFeed	The Citadel
Best paying industry	Professional	Technology

Differences between account director and project manager education

There are a few differences between an account director and a project manager in terms of educational background:

	Account Director	Project Manager
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 80%	Bachelor's Degree, 68%
Most common major	Business	Business
Most common college	University of Southern California	University of Pennsylvania

Account director vs project manager demographics

Here are the differences between account directors' and project managers' demographics:

	Account Director	Project Manager
Average age	46	47
Gender ratio	Male, 50.9% Female, 49.1%	Male, 68.9% Female, 31.1%
Race ratio	Black or African American, 3.2% Unknown, 4.4% Hispanic or Latino, 9.8% Asian, 4.1% White, 78.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2%	Black or African American, 7.7% Unknown, 4.7% Hispanic or Latino, 12.9% Asian, 9.0% White, 65.0% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.7%
LGBT Percentage	7%	10%

Differences between account director and project manager duties and responsibilities

Account director example responsibilities.

Manage coordination with HCP agencies for launch.
Manage the development and creation of print and broadcast advertising and in-store merchandising.
Manage relationships with all GPO pharmacy, medical device, and physician preference teams.
Manage client accounts as well as introducing cross selling into other verticals to increase the portfolio.
Manage RFP / RFI process and drive all opportunities that provide a consultative, long-term solution and support.
Increase clients SEO rankings and achieve first page placement both locally and nationally for highly search phrases for a client.

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Project manager example responsibilities.

Schedule and manage the GCP audit process.
Define, develop and manage metrics and KPIs systems for new product business group.
Manage the application process for the FDA medical device, minority and small business certifications.
Manage multiple projects and resources simultaneously while mentoring, coaching and implementing best practices, SOX and HIPAA compliance standards.
Lead teams using the Informatica ETL tool for the design and development of multiple financial and risk enterprise data warehouses.
Administer and manage Salesforce requirements.

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Account director vs project manager skills

Common account director skills

Account Management, 9%
Project Management, 7%
Work Ethic, 7%
Healthcare, 7%
Digital Marketing, 5%
Email Marketing, 4%

Common project manager skills

Project Management, 23%
Project Scope, 6%
Customer Service, 6%
Infrastructure, 5%
Status Reports, 4%
Risk Management, 3%

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Updated January 8, 2025

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