How To Become A Research Director: What It Is and Career Path

What is a research director and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Quoted expert

Ryan Barker

A research director oversees a company's research and development department. Your duties are to set goals that are in line with the company's vision, provide strategic direction on how to complete the research goals, supervise team members to work efficiently and more productively to accomplish the goal and lead the team in networking activities. You are also expected to oversee data collection and analysis, product design, and manufacturing. Your responsibilities also include hiring and training new staff, conducting performance evaluations, and gathering information. As a research director, you are expected to prepare detailed reports about the progress and outcomes of research projects.

You must have a bachelor's degree in business, political science, or psychology and at least five years of management experience for this role. Apart from this, you must be very observant and extremely mindful of every detail. Plus, you should have excellent communication and analytical skills. Your average annual salary is $102,439.

What general advice would you give to a research director?

Ryan Barker

Visiting Instructor, State University of New York at Oswego

Put your time in, get your experience, make your bosses proud and move on. So long as there is a strong market, don't waste time "waiting" for the perfect job, leave. Go out and get it, just don't level on bad terms and make sure you provided value at the time of your departure.

ScoreResearch DirectorUS Average

Salary

7.8

Avg. Salary $108,875

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

4.9

Growth rate 19%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.0

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.13%

Asian 12.54%

Black or African American 5.03%

Hispanic or Latino 12.00%

Unknown 4.96%

White 65.33%

Gender

female 41.03%

male 58.97%

Age - 34

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 - 34

Stress level

4.9

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.2

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

4.6

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a research director

Explore research director education requirements

Most common research director degrees

Bachelor's

63.4 %

Master's

20.3 %

Doctorate

12.1 %

Start to develop specific research director skills

Skills	Percentages
Research Projects	8.43%
Data Collection	6.14%
Healthcare	5.51%
Market Research	5.43%
Data Analysis	4.61%

Complete relevant research director training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New research directors 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 a research director based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real research director resumes.

Research research director duties and responsibilities

Evaluate primary data using SPSS software, implement research plans and successfully manage the budget for the project.
Manage social media initiatives including Facebook and LinkedIn.
Manage Nielsen relationship to ensure successful measurement of the Seattle-Tacoma DMA.
Lead customer and competitor research, functional acquisition due diligence, and portfolio management of existing products/services and new investments.

Get research director experience

Generally, it takes 4-6 years to become a research director. The most common roles before becoming a research director include research assistant, research associate team lead and internship.

Prepare your research director resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your research director 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 a research director resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable research director resume templates

Build a professional research director 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 research director resume.