How To Become A Creative Manager: What It Is and Career Path

What is a creative manager and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Quoted expert

Yash Egami

The fancy ads that we view daily, over the internet or television, require specific skills to make. Creative Manager leads and directs the design and production of visual and audio materials and media used for advertising, broadcast, and web communications. The job is to maintain a cohesive look and feel of a project, be it an advertising campaign, fashion line, video game, or magazine, by ensuring the visuals and interactive and motion designs are on point.

A creative manager position usually requires a bachelor's degree or master's degree in a specific creative field, such as marketing, graphic design, or fine arts. Besides creativity, you need humility, perspective, openness, and resolution. Knowledge of art history, design history, pop culture, and counterculture can prove beneficial as well. The rewards for the position are massive.

A creative manager can earn over $40 an hour. That equates to over $84,000 per year. The position is likely to experience growth in the coming years, upwards of 8%, resulting in massive job opportunities being created all over the United States.

What general advice would you give to a creative manager?

Yash Egami

VP, The One Club

A recent Forrester report says that the ad industry will lose 50,000 jobs through 2021, with 35,000 of them already lost since the pandemic. The traditional ad agency model was already in trouble, with many brands hiring away talent and creating their own in-house agencies. Add to that the recent reckoning with the Black Lives Matter movement, and what we're seeing is an industry that is being forced to go through monumental change in order to survive.

While traditional roles like art director or copywriter are on the decline, the good news is that, in an effort to reinvent themselves, agencies are seeking creatives with digital skills like UX design and programming. The rise of in-house creative departments has also meant more opportunities for job seekers within brands rather than agencies. And because of the demand for more diversity from clients and those within advertising, recruiters are making more of an effort to hire multicultural talent.

At The One Club for Creativity, we've been at the forefront of change in the industry through our diversity and inclusion, professional development and gender equality programs. We recently hosted our annual multicultural career fair, "Where Are All the Black People?" that brought together thousands of diverse talent with 40 agencies and companies looking to hire. We launched One School, a free online program for Black creatives who want to get into the industry but don't have a portfolio or the economic means to afford to go to ad school. And we're working on upskilling courses for professionals who want to reinvent themselves or keep up with the changing demands of our industry.

So if you're a recent graduate who specializes in art direction, our advice would be to keep an open mind about what kind of company you want to work for and think about expanding your skillset to include digital skills so that you can future-proof your career. Where you are isn't as important because, since the pandemic, agencies have become more comfortable with working remotely and they are more open to having a workforce not centered on the traditional agency hubs, like New York or Los Angeles.

ScoreCreative ManagerUS Average

Salary

6.8

Avg. Salary $87,130

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

7.5

Growth rate 10%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.1

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.23%

Asian 8.15%

Black or African American 3.04%

Hispanic or Latino 8.67%

Unknown 5.32%

White 74.58%

Gender

female 46.42%

male 53.58%

Age - 38

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 38

Stress level

7.5

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

9.0

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

3.5

Work life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a creative manager

Explore creative manager education requirements

Most common creative manager degrees

Bachelor's

79.6 %

Associate

10.9 %

Master's

6.1 %

Start to develop specific creative manager skills

Skills	Percentages
Project Management	6.87%
Digital Marketing	6.65%
Graphic Design	6.31%
Adobe Creative Suite	4.76%
Creative Strategy	4.53%

Complete relevant creative manager training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New creative managers learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a creative manager based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real creative manager resumes.

Research creative manager duties and responsibilities

Manage copywriting team and serve as lead copywriter on various projects from conception to execution.
Manage direct mail campaigns, RFP development, surveys, focus groups and market studies.
Deliver clear, concise copywriting and manage messaging for company as corporate direction and strategies change and grow into new markets.
Initiate RFP process for agency selection and manage all advertising agency activities.

Prepare your creative manager resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your creative manager resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a creative manager resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable creative manager resume templates

Build a professional creative manager resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your creative manager resume.