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The differences between agile project managers and product owners can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. While it typically takes 4-6 years to become an agile project manager, becoming a product owner takes usually requires 8-10 years. Additionally, an agile project manager has an average salary of $99,959, which is higher than the $97,070 average annual salary of a product owner.
The top three skills for an agile project manager include agile project, project management and jira. The most important skills for a product owner are user stories, acceptance criteria, and product backlog.
| Agile Project Manager | Product Owner | |
| Yearly salary | $99,959 | $97,070 |
| Hourly rate | $48.06 | $46.67 |
| Growth rate | - | 10% |
| Number of jobs | 125,161 | 129,990 |
| Job satisfaction | - | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 62% | Bachelor's Degree, 67% |
| Average age | 44 | 39 |
| Years of experience | 6 | 10 |
An agile project manager is responsible for maintaining an efficient project management system using agile methodologies, fairly distributing tasks to the team members, and providing constructive feedback to the team within every set milestone. Agile project managers collaborate with the whole team, considering the members' suggestions for project development, and organizing training and activities to boost their potentials and maximum productivity. They also handle the budget of the team, allocating adequate resources and materials to the team leads to support operational procedures, and achieve deadline objectives.
Product owners are at the forefront of an organization's development cycle. They have various duties and responsibilities, which include ensuring that the value of products created by the development team is maximized, creating a vision and defining the goals for development projects, and working closely with all stakeholders. As the product owner, you are responsible for ensuring that the development team maintains a consistent vision and overseeing the product backlog. You are also expected to supervise the actual product development stages and anticipate the needs of clients.
Agile project managers and product owners have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Agile Project Manager | Product Owner | |
| Average salary | $99,959 | $97,070 |
| Salary range | Between $73,000 And $136,000 | Between $71,000 And $130,000 |
| Highest paying City | San Francisco, CA | San Francisco, CA |
| Highest paying state | New Jersey | California |
| Best paying company | AppDynamics | ORIX USA |
| Best paying industry | Technology | Manufacturing |
There are a few differences between an agile project manager and a product owner in terms of educational background:
| Agile Project Manager | Product Owner | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 62% | Bachelor's Degree, 67% |
| Most common major | Business | Business |
| Most common college | Stanford University | University of Georgia |
Here are the differences between agile project managers' and product owners' demographics:
| Agile Project Manager | Product Owner | |
| Average age | 44 | 39 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 69.4% Female, 30.6% | Male, 64.3% Female, 35.7% |
| Race ratio | Black or African American, 6.2% Unknown, 4.7% Hispanic or Latino, 8.8% Asian, 12.0% White, 67.7% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.5% | Black or African American, 3.0% Unknown, 5.3% Hispanic or Latino, 8.7% Asian, 8.2% White, 74.6% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2% |
| LGBT Percentage | 11% | 10% |