How To Become A Senior Producer: What It Is and Career Path

What is a senior producer and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Quoted expert

Johnathan Paul

A senior producer leads the production team that is organizing a media project. Senior producers can work on video games, movies, TV shows, or any other kind of media production. They oversee every detail of the project they are working on. Senior producers hire staff, such as camera operators, and on-screen talent and screenwriters. They create a budget for the production after gathering investors and make sure that the budget is met. Sometimes, senior producers get hands-on with the project by editing footage and promoting the work, especially if they are on a smaller production team. Luckily, they do not have to do all of this work themselves but work with a whole team of producers and assistants.

Senior producers earn an average salary of $105,018 a year. This salary can be even higher if a production is very profitable.

However, if you're thinking of going into production chances are it will be many years before you can become a senior producer. Most have five or more years of experience working in production, if not longer. They also have bachelor's degrees in communications or a related field.

What general advice would you give to a senior producer?

Johnathan Paul

Adjunct Professor, University of North Texas

My number one piece of advice for soon-to-be or recent graduates is never to stop learning. I always strive to tell my students to be as diverse as possible. Don't just know one thing; in today's market, you need to know how to do several things. Diversify your tool palette. This will help you in the long run and may lead you to a career path you didn't realize existed.

ScoreSenior ProducerUS Average

Salary

7.9

Avg. Salary $112,393

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

9.2

Growth rate 8%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

5.0

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.17%

Asian 6.35%

Black or African American 7.85%

Hispanic or Latino 14.44%

Unknown 5.58%

White 65.62%

Gender

female 40.37%

male 59.63%

Age - 39

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 - 39

Stress level

9.2

Stress level is very high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

9.6

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

2.8

Work life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a senior producer

Explore senior producer education requirements

Most common senior producer degrees

Bachelor's

83.2 %

Master's

9.4 %

Associate

4.6 %

Start to develop specific senior producer skills

Skills	Percentages
Project Management	10.21%
Video Production	7.05%
Facebook	4.66%
Digital Content	4.50%
Production Process	4.20%

Complete relevant senior producer training and internships

Accountants spend an average of Less than 1 month on post-employment, on-the-job training. New senior producers 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 senior producer based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real senior producer resumes.

Research senior producer duties and responsibilities

Utilize Basecamp and JIRA to manage communications.
Manage local NYC staff and off site personnel.
Manage the day to day operations of high end NYC audio studio.
Manage all stages of creative for promotion of WETA and national PBS programming.

Get senior producer experience

Generally, it takes 6-12 months to become a senior producer. The most common roles before becoming a senior producer include producer, associate producer team lead and executive producer.

Prepare your senior producer resume

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

Choose from 10+ customizable senior producer resume templates

Build a professional senior producer 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 senior producer resume.