Explore jobs
Find specific jobs
Explore careers
Explore professions
Best companies
Explore companies
Job outlook for regional product managers in the United States
Regional product manager job growth summary. After extensive research, interviews, and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:
The projected regional product manager job growth rate is 5% from 2018-2028.
About 23,800 new jobs for regional product managers are projected over the next decade.
Regional product manager salaries have increased 12% for regional product managers in the last 5 years.
There are over 52,369 regional product managers currently employed in the United States.
There are 168,499 active regional product manager job openings in the US.
The average regional product manager salary is $111,928.
Are regional product manager jobs in demand?
Regional product manager job and salary trends over time
Regional product manager jobs over time
Regional product manager job growth rate over time
| Year | # of jobs | % of population |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 52,369 | 0.02% |
| 2020 | 46,742 | 0.01% |
| 2019 | 47,382 | 0.01% |
| 2018 | 44,172 | 0.01% |
| 2017 | 42,349 | 0.01% |
Average regional product manager salary over time
Regional product manager salary by year
| Year | Avg. salary | Hourly rate | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | $111,928 | $53.81 | +4.5% |
| 2024 | $107,148 | $51.51 | +1.9% |
| 2023 | $105,100 | $50.53 | +2.6% |
| 2022 | $102,427 | $49.24 | +2.6% |
| 2021 | $99,804 | $47.98 | +3.6% |
Regional product manager jobs by state
Most common states for regional product managers
| Rank | State | Population | # of jobs | Employment/ 1000ppl |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | District of Columbia | 693,972 | 551 | 79% |
| 2 | Washington | 7,405,743 | 2,674 | 36% |
| 3 | Massachusetts | 6,859,819 | 2,206 | 32% |
| 4 | Oregon | 4,142,776 | 1,312 | 32% |
| 5 | Vermont | 623,657 | 202 | 32% |
| 6 | Utah | 3,101,833 | 960 | 31% |
| 7 | New Hampshire | 1,342,795 | 383 | 29% |
| 8 | Rhode Island | 1,059,639 | 306 | 29% |
| 9 | Colorado | 5,607,154 | 1,513 | 27% |
| 10 | California | 39,536,653 | 10,454 | 26% |
| 11 | Minnesota | 5,576,606 | 1,437 | 26% |
| 12 | Virginia | 8,470,020 | 2,090 | 25% |
| 13 | Delaware | 961,939 | 221 | 23% |
| 14 | Illinois | 12,802,023 | 2,733 | 21% |
| 15 | Georgia | 10,429,379 | 2,241 | 21% |
| 16 | North Carolina | 10,273,419 | 2,053 | 20% |
| 17 | Arizona | 7,016,270 | 1,386 | 20% |
| 18 | Wisconsin | 5,795,483 | 1,180 | 20% |
| 19 | Montana | 1,050,493 | 215 | 20% |
| 20 | Pennsylvania | 12,805,537 | 2,412 | 19% |
Most common cities for regional product managers
| Rank | City | # of jobs | Employment/ 1000ppl | Avg. salary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Peachtree City | 1 | 3% | $108,169 |
| 2 | Gardena | 1 | 2% | $128,489 |
| 3 | Long Beach | 1 | 0% | $128,044 |
Regional Product Manager job outlook: Expert opinions
Our panel of regional product manager experts
Texas Christian University
Baylor University
Miami University
Wisconsin School of Business, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Christopher Newport University
Longwood University
Montana State University
Indiana University
Fordham University
National Retail Federation
MHI – Material Handling Industry
Hawaii Pacific University
Ken Corbit Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Professional Practice in MarketingTexas Christian University
Specialized Sales, Merchandising And Marketing Operations
What general advice would you give to a Regional Product Manager?
Ken Corbit Ph.D.: Strategic
Company Selection:
Focus on joining companies with robust sales training programs, emphasizing consultative selling. Look for organizations that invest in your development, providing live calling experiences, quota-driven sales processes, and exposure to tools like Salesforce.
Tech
Proficiency and Sales Tools Mastery:
Familiarize yourself with cutting-edge sales technologies, including CRM tools like Salesforce. Your proficiency in these tools will not only streamline your sales processes but also position you as a tech-savvy professional in the competitive sales landscape.
Hands-On
Experience:
Actively engage in live calling, take ownership of sales funnels, and work with senior hiring authorities during your training. This hands-on experience will not only build your confidence but also prepare you for the challenges of consultative selling.
Research
and Decision-Making Skills:
Develop strong research skills to evaluate companies based on fit, growth opportunities, compensation structures, and overall potential. This informed decision-making approach will set you apart and empower you to navigate the sales landscape strategically.
Mentorship
and Networking:
Seek mentorship both within and outside your organization. Building relationships with mentors who invest in your sales skills and knowledge will provide valuable insights. Additionally, actively participate in online forums to connect with practical sales
knowledge and best practices.
Andrea Dixon Ph.D.
Executive Director, Center for Professional Selling, Frank and Floy Smith Holloway Endowed Professorship in Marketing, President, University Sales Center Alliance 2019-2021Baylor University
Hankamer School of Business
What skills will help Regional Product Managers earn the most?
Andrea Dixon Ph.D.: People who can recognize patterns (in data, in people), build connections with and across others, create a focus on high-performance behaviors, and lead with a confident humility are those who will win today and in the future business environment.
What's a day at work look like for a Regional Product Manager?
Patrick Lindsay: Sales is a good job out of college. Regardless of the company, the industry, the marketplace or geography, being in the customer interface is not only the best and quickest way to learn about a business but also to learn about business. They are exposed to the impact from and on all stakeholders. They learn about what a value proposition really is and the importance of Trust. They observe and learn the importance of relationships. And they grasp the importance of why over what and how. Finally, sales experience and success is almost universally transferable. Once a grad has a year to three developing competencies, skills and confidence, they can pursue virtually any other product or service in almost any company. They can pursue a next job in sales but also other areas like marketing, customer service, human resources, training, recruiting, et cetera. Employers are not emphasizing industry knowledge or experience like they once did. And many companies, from small local the largest global companies in their industries, insist their new college hires begin in sales (aka account management, business development, client acquisition).
Now, with the proper training (could be a major/minor but doesn't have to be if the graduate has developed a particular skill set) there are many available jobs for graduates that are technology-related. These are "good job" from a compensation and stability perspective. And any position with a global tech firm is a golden ticket.
What technical skills for a Regional Product Manager stand out to employers?
Patrick Lindsay: Most all employers expect full competency in creatively using technology for communications. By that I don't mean mobile devices or social media usgae. I mean a widespread working knowledge of technology tools (apps, software, etc). Employers are seeking those candidates who can convey thoughts, ideas, responses in a multi-faceted way. Basic competency in written correspondence is no longer enough. Employers want to see daily business communication not only contain demonstration of good writing (grammar, syntax, formatting) but also being able to create embedded images, video, and relevant web links to better communicate. And not just for a big fancy client presentation, but consistently in regular communication. Further, they want words supported by data; support words with numerical evidence. As such, advanced excel skills and real experience in data sources and extraction stand out to employers.
Similarly, they expect professional virtual audio-visual communication. It is not enough to just be on the Zoom call. The expectation is to be prepared, to be engaged, to be aware of the audio and video angles and backgrounds. To demonstrate active listening as well as enthusiastic, energetic, even animated talking. Body language and facial expression are even more enhanced in virtual communications.
If there was a positive outcome from being thrust into an academic world that was all virtual, it was the need to learn new technical skills, not only for classwork, but also for social interaction. This will not only be appreciated by employers, but for many, expected.
Will there be an enduring impact of the coronavirus pandemic on Regional Product Managers?
Patrick Lindsay: Absolutely, the pandemic will have an enduring impact on these upcoming graduates. Uncertainty is always part of the job search journey/process for future graduates. Uncertainty is now major Anxiety number one for them.
First, the recruiting process drastically changed and opportunities diminished in the past twelve months. Of course the process had to become virtual. But there has been more than a fifty percent reduction in the number of companies participating in career fairs. Further, those companies are anticipating a reduction in the number of available positions, or have said they will have none at all this year. Some only participated to keep their relationships alive with the universities.
Second, companies cannot commit to the full scope of work for new hires, nor the location... because they still don't know. Starting positions will still be virtual WFH. What does that mean for a college graduate? Move back home with parents? Some companies are anticipating a return this summer to office or other work sites that are bricks and mortar locations. Still others say they will stay virtual. Either way, few will commit to where a new graduate will be located. The common position is "We will see where our needs are when the time comes". Rarely have graduates not known the location of their first job.
Third, where millennials were the driving faction for flexible work environs and work from home, in less than one year, many upcoming Gen Z graduates have changed their perspective and are seeking opportunities to commute to work and interact with people in a live daily routine. They do not want to continue living in a virtual world. It took less than ten months to change a cultural movement. This will be a growing field of study for behavioral psychologists, sociologists and anthropologists.
Fourth, many grads are open to a wider bandwidth of positions and industries (other than those seeking a "professional" career in certification trades: accountancy, engineering, architecture, etc.) than they would have been one year ago. The uncertainty of supply always impacts the demand. Likewise, their career criteria and priorities seem to have changed, but in very inconsistent ways.
What's a good job out of college for Regional Product Managers?
Patrick Lindsay: Sales is a good job out of college. Regardless of the company, the industry, the marketplace or geography, being in the customer interface is not only the best and quickest way to learn about a business but also to learn about business. They are exposed to the impact from and on all stakeholders. They learn about what a value proposition really is and the importance of Trust. They observe and learn the importance of relationships. And they grasp the importance of why over what and how. Finally, sales experience and success is almost universally transferable. Once a grad has a year to three developing competencies, skills and confidence, they can pursue virtually any other product or service in almost any company. They can pursue a next job in sales but also other areas like marketing, customer service, human resources, training, recruiting, et cetera. Employers are not emphasizing industry knowledge or experience like they once did. And many companies, from small local the largest global companies in their industries, insist their new college hires begin in sales (aka account management, business development, client acquisition).
Now, with the proper training (could be a major/minor but doesn't have to be if the graduate has developed a particular skill set) there are many available jobs for graduates that are technology-related. These are "good job" from a compensation and stability perspective. And any position with a global tech firm is a golden ticket.
Sachin Tuli
Director, International Business MajorWisconsin School of Business, University of Wisconsin-Madison
International Business
Will there be an enduring impact of the coronavirus pandemic on Regional Product Managers?
Sachin Tuli: Certainly there will be impact on graduates as there will be impact on society as a whole - but which impact? If economic, we serve students from a variety of national backgrounds, so depending on where our students go after graduation their local economy recoveries could diverge from the global average and that could effect both the job market and salaries. For instance, China is forecasted to continue recovering due to its proactive lock downs and ability to serve foreign markets through this past year. In the U.S., where the majority of our students stay, a strong vaccine program, safety net supports and stimulus will help ensure a recovery at large and likely a post-Covid bump. Though the recovery will be uneven, our students primarily head to medium and large firms that will be well poised to hire, or which may have experienced growth through the pandemic. There will be other impacts on personal finances, health and mental health, among others, that should also be considered. The pandemic has laid bare the inequities in society, and firms are pledging to help address these issues through various actions, such as diversity and inclusion initiatives, and proactive internal training and education.
What's a day at work look like for a Regional Product Manager?
Sachin Tuli: The pandemic accelerated ongoing shifts with work-from-anywhere and use of remote meeting technologies. With mass adoption at all levels, these trends are likely to persist to some degree across fields and industries. There will likely be less travel for a number of years, but concurrently we may see more cross-team and cross-national collaboration and coordination. From an international business perspective, firms do plan to continue their globalization efforts and we know that graduates themselves increasingly seek potential global opportunities and mobility when choosing which organizations to work for.
How have salaries changed over time for Regional Product Managers?
Sachin Tuli: Our undergraduate international business program serves as a second major that is coupled with another business major; marketing, finance, and management are most common majors combined with international business. Initial career placement is driven by these first majors, with students using the knowledge and skills gained through the international business curriculum throughout their careers but often leveraging the major directly as they command more responsibility within their organizations. The Wisconsin School of Business continues to place our students competitively with starting salaries having kept pace with industry and peer schools; specific salary information by major can be found here:apps.wsb.wisc.edu
Todd Lee Goen
Instructor & Internship DirectorChristopher Newport University
Department of Communication
What's a good job out of college for Regional Product Managers?
Todd Lee Goen: Pandemic or no pandemic, the best job out of college is one that sets you on the path to achieve your ultimate career goal(s). Reflect on where you want to be in five or ten years or even twenty-five years. Then consider positions that will set you on the path to achieve that goal. Very few people land their dream job upon graduation - dream jobs are typically those we're not qualified to do without some additional work experience and training. A good job is one that will help you achieve your goal(s) - just don't frame it that way in the interview.
Good jobs pay a livable salary for the location, offer benefits (health insurance and retirement at minimum), and provide professional development opportunities (these can take a variety of forms). Too often, college grads overlook professional development. If an employer isn't willing to invest in you, there's no guarantee you will succeed in the job. Good employers understand they need qualified employees who continually develop their skills and abilities, and good employers will make sure employees have the resources they need to succeed.
What technical skills for a Regional Product Manager stand out to employers?
Todd Lee Goen: Technical skills are often industry and/or position specific. Applicants should highlight any technical skills related to the position advertisement and those that add value to the position/organization. Most importantly, requirements for technical skills change with time and technological advances. This means employers value workers capable of adapting to change and continually improving and acquiring new technical skills. Thus, it's usually more important to demonstrate you are capable of learning and developing technical skills than it is to have a specific skill set upon hire (although this is not true for some positions/industries).
That said, technical skills related to online presentations, virtual meetings, virtual networking, remote working and the like are hot commodities right now. While most organizations were in the process of adopting many of these technologies and ways of doing business pre-pandemic, the pandemic accelerated the process. Organizations are making it work, but they often don't know best practices or the most efficient means of working in the largely virtual, pandemic environment. Post-pandemic, many of the remote/virtual changes the pandemic brought will stay in some form. Technical skills that support this type of workplace will make applicants stand out to many employers because they need/want to do virtual/remote business better.
Are there any particularly good places in the United States for Regional Product Managers to find work opportunities?
Dr. David Lehr: Most job growth will continue to be in urban centers and the surrounding suburbs. Rural areas will continue to struggle (remote work notwithstanding).
What skills stand out on Regional Product Manager resumes?
Dr. Angela Woodland Ph.D.: Skills that are immediately useful stand out on resumes. Right now, data analytics skills are in hot demand. A desirable job candidate should be able to import large data sets in various formats, clean data, manipulate data, interrogate data, and draw conclusions from the data. Additionally, the job candidate should be able to prepare informative and easy-to-follow data visualizations of the results. This skill set allows a job candidate to be immediately useful in an organization. It is the new way of analyzing and communicating.
What are the biggest trends we'll see in the Regional Product Manager job market given the pandemic?
Davide , Ph.D. Bolchini Ph.D.: In the prospering User Experience (UX) economy, I see more and more "remote" UX internships offered to our students and "remote" UX full-time job opportunities offered to our graduates. Both graduates and employers are more comfortable establishing remote working collaborations, which are becoming now the norm more than before, due to the disruption in the traditional office-bound workspace that COVID brought to the marketplace.
What skills stand out on Regional Product Manager resumes?
Davide , Ph.D. Bolchini Ph.D.: In my experience, our most successful MS HCI graduates (https://soic.iupui.edu/hcc/graduate/hci/masters/) take the time to put together a compelling online portfolio that showcases their project experience and skill set in action, as applied to specific research opportunities they had with faculty or projects they worked on during their UX internships in the industry. The personal brand of UX junior professional can be greatly enriched when the portfolio includes not only what the student has done, but why and what was the design rationale behind the process and the results, what was the larger context and goal of the project (especially in large collaborative projects), and what was the specific role and contribution of the student. The discussion about the portfolio of a candidate has become a key ingredient of the interview for UX jobs, besides other important activities such as UX design exercises or remote assignments.
Are there any particularly good places in the United States for Regional Product Managers to find work opportunities?
Davide , Ph.D. Bolchini Ph.D.: With the many remote work opportunities for our MS HCI graduates, physical location is less relevant than before, and flexibility becomes key. UX job opportunities are plenty in the Midwest, as well as on the East and West Coast, and the roles and competitiveness of these positions vary greatly based on the nature of the organization and the industry ecosystem.
What type of skills will young Regional Product Managers need?
Peter Johnson DPS: There are three things that employers are looking for:
1. Demonstrated ability to solve problems
2. Ability to analyze and make decisions based on data
3. Communication skills with management, teams, and clients
Bill Thorne
Executive Director of the NRF Foundation and Senior Vice President of Communication and Public Affairs of NRFNational Retail Federation
What general advice would you give to a Regional Product Manager?
Bill Thorne: Retail is the largest private-sector employer in the country, directly employing 32 million people and supporting 52 million jobs overall - roughly one-quarter of the U.S. workforce. While COVID-19 has presented new and unexpected challenges, retailers have continued to showcase the industry's resilience and adaptability time and again. The safety and security of customers and employees remains our greatest priority. It is no doubt that the professional environment has changed this year, but retail continues to offer a plethora of career opportunities for graduates and seasoned veterans alike.
Michael Mikitka
Executive Vice PresidentMHI – Material Handling Industry
Knowledge Center and Warehousing Education and Research Council (WERC)
What type of skills will young Regional Product Managers need?
Michael Mikitka: Courses and internships are essential. While the required depth of knowledge may vary from one position to another, employers are generally looking for candidates with strong "people-related" skills, those who are willing to continue to learn, and those with the ability to be flexible and adapt.
By "people-related" skills, I mean the abilities associated with effective communication (listen and express ideas and direction) and the skills related to working independently and a team.
As for the interest to continually learn... from a technology, data, and equipment perspective, today's supply chain looks very different than it did 10-years ago. The willingness and ability to continually learn are essential for anyone in a leadership role.
As for flexibility and adapting...supply chain/logistics is as much about responding to disruption and demand as it is planning for it. There is a predictable demand (i.e., seasonal...everyone knows when back-to-school shopping begins). Then there is the unpredictable demand (i.e., power-outages, wildfires, pandemic) that impact market and the ability to operate. Candidates that express flexibility and problem-solving skills will be much sought-after.
What Regional Product Manager skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?
Matthew Lopresti: Captains of industry are often asked about the traits they look for in new hires. Critical thinking is always a must, as well as excellent written and oral communication skills.
These are the core competencies of the discipline of philosophy. Top-notch communication abilities begin with a depth of ability to understand nuanced, complex details, and then turn around and clearly communicate these complex ideas in easily digestible bits of information. It is no coincidence that students who graduate with philosophy degrees repeatedly dominate graduate and law-school entrance exams like the GRE and LSAT; they are often the sharpest thinkers with the quickest minds
