How To Become An Incident Manager: What It Is and Career Path

What is an incident manager and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

An incident manager is someone who is responsible for leading the response to any unexpected events or incidents within an organization. They are responsible for managing the incident response team, coordinating communication between different teams and stakeholders, and making critical decisions to mitigate the impact of the incident. An incident manager needs to have excellent communication skills, be able to remain calm under pressure, and have a good understanding of the organization's systems and processes.

ScoreIncident ManagerUS Average

Salary

6.8

Avg. Salary $87,053

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

7.4

Growth rate 2%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

1.6

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.16%

Asian 13.35%

Black or African American 3.15%

Hispanic or Latino 9.04%

Unknown 4.70%

White 69.60%

Gender

female 24.60%

male 75.40%

Age - 48

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 - 48

Stress level

7.4

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

10.0

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

3.5

Work life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

What are the pros and cons of being an incident manager?

Pros

Exciting and fast-paced work environment
Opportunity to work with cutting-edge technology and tools
Chance to develop leadership and problem-solving skills
High level of responsibility and autonomy
Good salary and benefits

Cons

High stress and pressure due to the nature of the work
Long and irregular working hours, including weekends and holidays
On-call duties that can disrupt personal life
Dealing with difficult and upset customers or stakeholders
Need for constant attention to details and accuracy

Key steps to become an incident manager

Explore incident manager education requirements

Most common incident manager degrees

Bachelor's

59.8 %

Associate

16.7 %

Master's

13.4 %

Start to develop specific incident manager skills

Skills	Percentages
Incident Response	12.07%
Infrastructure	7.84%
ITIL	7.17%
Metrics	5.46%
Problem Management	5.40%

Complete relevant incident manager training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 6-12 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New incident 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 an incident manager based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real incident manager resumes.

Research incident manager duties and responsibilities

Open, manage, rout and close remedy tickets.
Manage entire B2B production portfolio, without any issues.
Manage UAT testing which are comprised of thirty plus team members.
Manage a team and portfolio of production support, projects and processes.

Prepare your incident manager resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your incident 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 an incident 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 incident manager resume templates

Build a professional incident 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 incident manager resume.