As a production director, you will have the privilege of working in a variety of sectors, from industrial manufacturing to the entertainment industry. Your main purpose as a production director will be to ensure that staff members meet the production needs set by the management while also ensuring that high-quality products are manufactured for the customers.
Some of the duties and responsibilities that you will be performing in this capacity include planning and organizing schedules, assessing the project and its resource requirements, estimating and negotiating budgets and timescales, ensuring health and safety regulations are adhered to, liaising with buyers and the marketing department, organizing relevant training sessions, and supervising the work of juniors and subordinates. Essential skills required for this role are analytical, attention to detail, leadership, communication, and organization skills.
To qualify for this role, you will need a bachelor's degree in an industry-specific field; however, some employers may prefer a master's degree. Moreover, prior work experience in an industry-related field is also required. The average hourly pay for this position is $45.83, which amounts to $95,330 annually. The career is projected to grow, resulting in various new opportunities emerging all across the United States.
How to Become a Production Director
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a production director. For example, did you know that they make an average of $45.41 an hour? That's $94,459 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 5% and produce 7,200 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does a Production Director Do
There are certain skills that many production directors have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed creativity, leadership skills and time-management skills.
How To Become a Production Director
If you're interested in becoming a production director, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 73.2% of production directors have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 7.5% of production directors have master's degrees. Even though most production directors have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a production director. When we researched the most common majors for a production director, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or associate degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on production director resumes include master's degree degrees or high school diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a production director. In fact, many production director jobs require experience in a role such as production manager. Meanwhile, many production directors also have previous career experience in roles such as production assistant or internship.
Production Director Career Paths
In addition to switching up your job search, it might prove helpful to look at a career path for your specific job. Now, what's a career path you ask? Well, it's practically a map that shows how you might advance from one job title to another. Our career paths are especially detailed with salary changes. So, for example, if you started out with the role of operations director you might progress to a role such as vice president of manufacturing eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title vice president of manufacturing.
Average Salary for a Production Director
What Am I Worth?
Top Colleges for Production Directors
1. Stanford University
Stanford, CA • Private
2. University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA • Private
3. Northwestern University
Evanston, IL • Private
4. University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA • Private
5. California State University - Bakersfield
Bakersfield, CA • Private
6. Villanova University
Villanova, PA • Private
7. San Diego State University
San Diego, CA • Private
8. Bentley University
Waltham, MA • Private
9. SUNY Farmingdale
Farmingdale, NY • Private
10. Boston University
Boston, MA • Private
Top Skills For a Production Director
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 8.8% of production directors listed video production on their resume, but soft skills such as creativity and leadership skills are important as well.
Choose From 10+ Customizable Production Director Resume templates
Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Production Director templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Production Director resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.
Production Director Demographics
Production Director Gender Distribution
After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:
- Among production directors, 30.0% of them are women, while 70.0% are men.
- The most common race/ethnicity among production directors is White, which makes up 70.5% of all production directors.
- The most common foreign language among production directors is Spanish at 51.6%.
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Best States For a Production Director
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a production director. The best states for people in this position are California, Connecticut, Nevada, and New York. Production directors make the most in California with an average salary of $122,051. Whereas in Connecticut and Nevada, they would average $113,120 and $111,885, respectively. While production directors would only make an average of $111,282 in New York, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. Oregon
$107,658
Avg. Salary
2. California
$122,051
Avg. Salary
3. Nevada
$111,885
Avg. Salary
How Do Production Director Rate Their Jobs?
Top Production Director Employers
Most Common Employers For Production Director
| Rank  | Company  | Average Salary  | Hourly Rate  | Job Openings  |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Walt Disney Company | $128,579 | $61.82 | 5 |
| 2 | Hearst | $120,636 | $58.00 | 8 |
| 3 | Netflix | $115,605 | $55.58 | 5 |
| 4 | ViacomCBS | $109,167 | $52.48 | 20 |
| 5 | NBCUniversal | $108,478 | $52.15 | 5 |
| 6 | Gannett | $104,895 | $50.43 | 12 |
| 7 | Urban One | $96,128 | $46.22 | 13 |
| 8 | Chick-fil-A | $95,370 | $45.85 | 5 |
| 9 | Ralph Lauren | $95,285 | $45.81 | 5 |
| 10 | Condé Nast | $94,460 | $45.41 | 10 |
Production Director Videos
