How to hire a safety manager

How to hire a safety manager, step by step

Here's a step-by-step safety manager hiring guide:

• Step 1: Identify your hiring needs
• Step 2: Create an ideal candidate profile
• Step 3: Make a budget
• Step 4: Write a safety manager job description
• Step 5: Post your job
• Step 6: Interview candidates
• Step 7: Send a job offer and onboard your new safety manager
• Step 8: Go through the hiring process checklist

What does a safety manager do?

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1. Identify your hiring needs

   Before you start hiring a safety manager, identify what type of worker you actually need. Certain positions might call for a full-time employee, while others can be done by a part-time worker or contractor.

   Determine employee vs contractor status

   Is the person you're thinking of hiring a US citizen or green card holder?

   Yes

   No

   Hiring the perfect safety manager also involves considering the ideal background you'd like them to have. Depending on what industry or field they have experience in, they'll bring different skills to the job. It's also important to consider what levels of seniority and education the job requires and what kind of salary such a candidate would likely demand.

   This list presents safety manager salaries for various positions.

   Type of Safety Manager	Description	Hourly rate
   Safety Manager	Health and safety engineers develop procedures and design systems to prevent people from getting sick or injured and to keep property from being damaged. They combine knowledge of systems engineering and of health and safety to make sure that chemicals, machinery, software, furniture, and other consumer products will not cause harm to people or damage to buildings.	$23-55
   Industrial Hygienist	An Industrial Hygienist plans and conducts health programs to educate employees about cleanliness, safety, and sanitation in the workplace. They investigate adequacy of ventilation, exhaust equipment, lighting, and other conditions that can affect employees' health, comfort, or efficiency.	$21-49
   Manager, Environmental And Safety	An Environmental and Safety manager is responsible for overseeing environmental sustainability concerning production and manufacturing processes and mitigating nature's hazardous effects. Environmental and Safety managers evaluate the methods and resources used to produce and eliminate procedures that violate safety laws and internal regulations... Show more	$30-56

   Show more

2. Create an ideal candidate profile

   Common skills:

   • OSHA
   • Safety Program
   • Safety Procedures
   • Safety Training
   • Safety Policies
   • Safety Regulations
   • Corrective Action
   • Safety Audits
   • Safety Issues
   • EPA
   • Safety Culture
   • Safety Standards
   • Risk Management
   • Continuous Improvement

   Check all skills

   Responsibilities:

   • Train and lead industrial Hazmat response team.
   • Manage consultants to complete air permit application and SPCC plan reviews.
   • Coordinate and conduct JHA, safety stand downs, accident investigation and manage individual WC claims.
   • Meet with PPE vendors and manage PPE inventory and PPE use compliance on the production floor.
   • Train and manage a team of competent persons and gas-free technicians under the direction of NFPA standards and marine chemist.
   • Manage financial oversight and budget management including financial modeling and analysis, new products, travel, tools, and scheduling.

   More safety manager duties

3. Make a budget

   Including a salary range in your safety manager job description helps attract top candidates to the position. A safety manager salary can be affected by several factors, such as geography, experience, seniority, certifications, and the prestige of the hiring company.

   For example, the average salary for a safety manager in Oklahoma may be lower than in California, and an entry-level safety manager usually earns less than a senior-level safety manager. Additionally, a safety manager with certifications may command a higher salary, and working for a well-known company or start-up may also impact an employee's pay.

   Average safety manager salary

   $74,754yearly

   $35.94 hourly rate

   ---

   Entry-level safety manager salary

   $48,000 yearly salary

   Updated January 1, 2026

   Average safety manager salary by state

   Rank	State	Avg. salary	Hourly rate
   1	California	$124,166	$60
   2	Nevada	$110,575	$53
   3	District of Columbia	$99,483	$48
   4	Massachusetts	$95,808	$46
   5	Utah	$94,688	$46
   6	New Jersey	$94,494	$45
   7	Connecticut	$89,468	$43
   8	Oregon	$86,521	$42
   9	Michigan	$83,677	$40
   10	Washington	$82,772	$40
   11	Virginia	$79,319	$38
   12	Pennsylvania	$78,526	$38
   13	New York	$77,360	$37
   14	Ohio	$77,083	$37
   15	Maryland	$76,843	$37
   16	North Carolina	$72,416	$35
   17	Colorado	$72,267	$35
   18	Illinois	$71,244	$34
   19	Arizona	$70,640	$34
   20	Delaware	$68,305	$33

   Average safety manager salary by company

   Company

   Rank	Company	Average salary	Hourly rate	Job openings
   1	NVIDIA	$147,605	$70.96	1
   2	Meta	$145,329	$69.87
   3	Google	$136,474	$65.61	31
   4	eBay	$126,203	$60.67
   5	Zoox	$125,945	$60.55	3
   6	The Walt Disney Company	$124,819	$60.01	2
   7	Colonial Pipeline	$123,112	$59.19
   8	Didi Chuxing	$122,711	$59.00	1
   9	Amazon	$122,231	$58.76	205
   10	Genentech	$121,095	$58.22
   11	Rivian	$120,320	$57.85	1
   12	Biogen	$117,667	$56.57
   13	Crown Castle International	$116,828	$56.17
   14	AstraZeneca	$116,033	$55.79	1
   15	Cruise Automation	$113,559	$54.60
   16	Dell	$112,413	$54.04
   17	Renesas Electronics	$109,508	$52.65
   18	Koch Industries	$109,478	$52.63
   19	Martin Midstream GP	$109,173	$52.49
   20	GCP Applied Technologies	$107,594	$51.73

4. Writing a safety manager job description

   A safety manager job description should include a summary of the role, required skills, and a list of responsibilities. It's also good to include a salary range and the first name of the hiring manager. To help get you started, here's an example of a safety manager job description:

   Safety manager job description example

   Minimum qualifications:
   
   + Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
   
   + 10 years of experience in policy analysis, working on Internet technology issues or the policy environments that surround them.
   
   Preferred qualifications:
   
   + Experience leading cross-functional projects across organizational boundaries.
   
   + Experience managing a team.
   
   + Ability to work independently and complete projects from beginning to end in a timely manner.
   
   + Ability to navigate and influence cross-team stakeholders at senior levels.
   
   + Knowledge of brand safety works for advertisers on internet platforms.
   
   + Excellent written, verbal, and interpersonal communication skills to clearly communicate technical concepts with multiple cross-regional and cross-functional stakeholders.
   
   As a Manager, Trust and Safety, you will be responsible for protecting Google's users by ensuring online safety by fighting web abuse and fraud across Google products.You will ensure brand safety on YouTube by enforcing on our monetization policies. On this team, you'll be a big-picture thinker and strategic leader. You will work globally and cross-functionally with other YouTube teams to navigate challenging online brand safety escalations.
   
   At Google we work hard to earn our users' trust every day. Trust & Safety is Google's team of abuse fighting and user trust experts working daily to make the internet a safer place. We partner with teams across Google to deliver bold solutions in abuse areas such as malware, spam and account hijacking. A diverse team of Analysts, Policy Specialists, Engineers, and Program Managers, we work to reduce risk and fight abuse across all of Google's products, protecting our users, advertisers, and publishers across the globe in over 40 languages.
   
   + Manage a team of policy analysts working across YouTube Monetization to protect advertisers from brand safety violations through investigation, prevention and enforcement.
   
   + Responsible for handling incoming escalations from advertisers and creators. Work closely with our policy development team to rollout policy updates and improvements to our global team.
   
   + Represent a researched, data-driven, user-focused stance for YouTube that balances users, advertisers, product, and brand considerations across a variety of policy issues and platforms.
   
   + Lead projects and cross-functional initiatives within Trust & Safety, interacting with senior stakeholders from Engineering, Legal, Product teams, and more.
   
   + Come up with a long-term strategy and unpack it into projects and deliverables for the team. Mentor and help the team to achieve its goals and support the growth and development of the team.

   Copy this example

   

5. Post your job

   There are various strategies that you can use to find the right safety manager for your business:

   • Consider promoting from within or recruiting from your existing workforce.
   • Ask for referrals from friends, family members, and current employees.
   • Attend job fairs at local colleges to find candidates who meet your education requirements.
   • Use social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to reach potential job candidates.

   Post your job online:

   • Post your safety manager job on Zippia to find and recruit safety manager candidates who meet your exact specifications.
   • Use field-specific websites.
   • Post a job on free websites.

6. Interview candidates

   Recruiting safety managers requires you to bring your A-game to the interview process. The first interview should introduce the company and the role to the candidate as much as they present their background experience and reasons for applying for the job. During later interviews, you can go into more detail about the technical details of the job and ask behavioral questions to gauge how they'd fit into your current company culture.

   You should also ask about candidates' unique skills and talents to see if they match the ideal candidate profile you developed earlier. Candidates good enough for the next step can complete the technical interview.

   The right interview questions can help you assess a candidate's hard skills, behavioral intelligence, and soft skills.

7. Send a job offer and onboard your new safety manager

   Once you've found the safety manager candidate you'd like to hire, it's time to write an offer letter. This should include an explicit job offer that includes the salary and the details of any other perks. Qualified candidates might be looking at multiple positions, so your offer must be competitive if you like the candidate. Also, be prepared for a negotiation stage, as candidates may way want to tweak the details of your initial offer. Once you've settled on these details, you can draft a contract to formalize your agreement.

   It's equally important to follow up with applicants who don't get the job with an email letting them know that the position has been filled.

   After that, you can create an onboarding schedule for a new safety manager. Human Resources and the hiring manager should complete Employee Action Forms. Human Resources should also ensure that onboarding paperwork is completed, including I-9s, benefits enrollment, federal and state tax forms, etc., and that new employee files are created.

8. Go through the hiring process checklist

   • Determine employee type (full-time, part-time, contractor, etc.)
   • Submit a job requisition form to the HR department
   • Define job responsibilities and requirements
   • Establish budget and timeline
   • Determine hiring decision makers for the role
   • Write job description
   • Post job on job boards, company website, etc.
   • Promote the job internally
   • Process applications through applicant tracking system
   • Review resumes and cover letters
   • Shortlist candidates for screening
   • Hold phone/virtual interview screening with first round of candidates
   • Conduct in-person interviews with top candidates from first round
   • Score candidates based on weighted criteria (e.g., experience, education, background, cultural fit, skill set, etc.)
   • Conduct background checks on top candidates
   • Check references of top candidates
   • Consult with HR and hiring decision makers on job offer specifics
   • Extend offer to top candidate(s)
   • Receive formal job offer acceptance and signed employment contract
   • Inform other candidates that the position has been filled
   • Set and communicate onboarding schedule to new hire(s)
   • Complete new hire paperwork (i9, benefits enrollment, tax forms, etc.)

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How much does it cost to hire a safety manager?