Project director vs general manager

The differences between project directors and general managers can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. Additionally, a project director has an average salary of $107,396, which is higher than the $71,581 average annual salary of a general manager.

The top three skills for a project director include project management, oversight and customer satisfaction. The most important skills for a general manager are customer service, cleanliness, and food safety.

Project director vs general manager overview

	Project Director	General Manager
Yearly salary	$107,396	$71,581
Hourly rate	$51.63	$34.41
Growth rate	-	6%
Number of jobs	116,968	442,690
Job satisfaction	5	4.25
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 66%	Bachelor's Degree, 56%
Average age	47	44
Years of experience	-	6

What does a project director do?

A project director is an individual responsible for supervising workers from various departments given specific tasks to complete a given project. They create a budget to complete a job while monitoring the amount of money spent to ensure that overspending is avoided. They provide presentations to investors, business partners, and company executives to inform them about their progress and development. Project directors must have several years of experience and obtain at least a bachelor's degree in business economics or a related field to be hired.

What does a general manager do?

A general manager is responsible for handling the overall operations in the business. General managers manage the staff tasks efficiently, monitor the productivity and efficiency of the work environment, implement new strategies to improve the business performance, recognize the team's best efforts, and effective allocation of budget resources. A general manager must have excellent communication, decision-making, and critical-thinking skills to identify areas of improvement in handling customer complaints, connecting with vendors and other lines of businesses that will direct the company towards its successful objectives.

Project director vs general manager salary

Project directors and general managers have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Project Director	General Manager
Average salary	$107,396	$71,581
Salary range	Between $70,000 And $162,000	Between $40,000 And $126,000
Highest paying City	Las Vegas, NV	San Francisco, CA
Highest paying state	Nevada	Hawaii
Best paying company	Fried Frank	NVIDIA
Best paying industry	Technology	Manufacturing

Differences between project director and general manager education

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

	Project Director	General Manager
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 66%	Bachelor's Degree, 56%
Most common major	Business	Business
Most common college	University of Pennsylvania	University of Pennsylvania

Project director vs general manager demographics

Here are the differences between project directors' and general managers' demographics:

	Project Director	General Manager
Average age	47	44
Gender ratio	Male, 56.2% Female, 43.8%	Male, 70.7% Female, 29.3%
Race ratio	Black or African American, 7.5% Unknown, 4.7% Hispanic or Latino, 12.5% Asian, 8.8% White, 65.9% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.7%	Black or African American, 6.2% Unknown, 4.3% Hispanic or Latino, 15.4% Asian, 6.4% White, 67.1% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.5%
LGBT Percentage	10%	10%

Differences between project director and general manager duties and responsibilities

Project director example responsibilities.

Provide direction and guidance to Americas regional executives with all aspects of managing their regions in order to achieve business goals.
Manage commercial real estate, adaptive reuse development project.
Create, maintain, and manage software development project schedules according to PMI standards.
Manage customer service center issues spanning Americas, European, and Asian delivery centers.
Refine and develop strong/functional on-site OCI management teams to ensure project EPC objectives are achieve.
Manage offshore / onshore test teams through entire SDLC for major, minor and hotfix releases.

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General manager example responsibilities.

Generate positive EBITDA and improve cash flow by managing costs and inventory.
Manage all recruiting and training efforts, and develop systems to track ROI comparison results.
Work as a FOH AGM and train to manage all staff functions including training, hiring, food and labor controls.
Develop yearly budget for multiple hotels that include revenue, labor, fix and variable costs to achieve overall EBITDA goal.
Task primarily with building logistics infrastructure, managing operational expenses, and supporting start up strategies.
Train and manage FOH staff and improve overall quality, organization and professionalism of restaurant and bakery.

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Project director vs general manager skills

Common project director skills

Project Management, 20%
Oversight, 19%
Customer Satisfaction, 8%
HR, 5%
Adaptive, 5%
ERP, 4%

Common general manager skills

Customer Service, 20%
Cleanliness, 18%
Food Safety, 7%
Guest Service, 4%
Payroll, 4%
Math, 4%

Project Director vs. similar jobs

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Updated January 8, 2025

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