Problem manager vs project manager

The differences between problem managers and project managers can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. Additionally, a project manager has an average salary of $91,578, which is higher than the $79,324 average annual salary of a problem manager.

The top three skills for a problem manager include infrastructure, RCA and identify trends. The most important skills for a project manager are project management, project scope, and customer service.

Problem manager vs project manager overview

	Problem Manager	Project Manager
Yearly salary	$79,324	$91,578
Hourly rate	$38.14	$44.03
Growth rate	16%	8%
Number of jobs	75,250	167,116
Job satisfaction	-	4.17
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 60%	Bachelor's Degree, 68%
Average age	47	47
Years of experience	8	-

What does a problem manager do?

Problem Managers are responsible for managing a problem's lifecycle with the primary goal of either to minimize an incident's impact or to prevent an incident from happening. Their duties include undertaking problem registrations, performing problem prioritizations, conducting problem investigation, and implementing problem control. Besides that, they are involved in coordinating error reviews, managing problem closures as well as carry out root cause analysis in problem identifications. Problem managers also produce incident reports, execute preventative actions, and create a feedback loop to find correlations and causations of problems that occurred.

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.

Problem manager vs project manager salary

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

	Problem Manager	Project Manager
Average salary	$79,324	$91,578
Salary range	Between $53,000 And $116,000	Between $64,000 And $129,000
Highest paying City	-	San Francisco, CA
Highest paying state	-	California
Best paying company	-	The Citadel
Best paying industry	-	Technology

Differences between problem manager and project manager education

There are a few differences between a problem manager and a project manager in terms of educational background:

	Problem Manager	Project Manager
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 60%	Bachelor's Degree, 68%
Most common major	Business	Business
Most common college	Carnegie Mellon University	University of Pennsylvania

Problem manager vs project manager demographics

Here are the differences between problem managers' and project managers' demographics:

	Problem Manager	Project Manager
Average age	47	47
Gender ratio	Male, 68.7% Female, 31.3%	Male, 68.9% Female, 31.1%
Race ratio	Black or African American, 6.7% Unknown, 5.2% Hispanic or Latino, 10.0% Asian, 13.2% White, 64.7% 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	11%	10%

Differences between problem manager and project manager duties and responsibilities

Problem manager example responsibilities.

Manage team SharePoint site including site administration and developing customize pages from templates.
Manage professional services providing highly skil consultants to build messaging, collaboration and cloud solutions for enterprise clients.
Used ITIL and ITSM requirements to standardize problem management process.
Lead project to revamp categorization of ITSM tool for more comprehensive reporting.
Consult with customers and write procedures for implantation of ITIL best practices.
Help to implement ITIL V3 best practices and authore Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) complacence documentation.

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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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Problem manager vs project manager skills

Common problem manager skills

Infrastructure, 10%
RCA, 8%
Identify Trends, 7%
Trend Analysis, 6%
Proactive Problem, 6%
Process Improvement, 6%

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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