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.
Senior Producer Overview
Senior Producer Careers
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a senior producer. For example, did you know that they make an average of $49.2 an hour? That's $102,345 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 5% and produce 7,200 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does a Senior Producer Do
There are certain skills that many senior producers have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed communication skills, leadership skills and time-management skills.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a senior producer, we found that a lot of resumes listed 11.4% of senior producers included project management, while 10.7% of resumes included online, and 9.7% of resumes included video production. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the senior producer job title. But what industry to start with? Most senior producers actually find jobs in the media and technology industries.
How To Become a Senior Producer
If you're interested in becoming a senior producer, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 68.0% of senior producers have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 20.4% of senior producers have master's degrees. Even though most senior producers have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a senior producer. When we researched the most common majors for a senior producer, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or master's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on senior producer resumes include associate degree degrees or diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a senior producer. In fact, many senior producer jobs require experience in a role such as producer. Meanwhile, many senior producers also have previous career experience in roles such as associate producer or executive producer.
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Senior Producer Career Paths
As you move along in your career, you may start taking on more responsibilities or notice that you've taken on a leadership role. Using our career map, a senior producer can determine their career goals through the career progression. For example, they could start out with a role such as project manager, progress to a title such as owner and then eventually end up with the title senior director of marketing.
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Average Salary for a Senior Producer
Best Paying Cities
Recently Added Salaries
Job TitleCompany  | Company | Start Date | Salary |
|---|---|---|---|
USAA Senior Design Producer Senior Design Producer | USAA USAA | 01/20/2021 01/20/2021 | $88,20001/20/2021 $88,200 |
American Public Media SR Producer, Midday Programming SR Producer, Midday Programming | American Public Media American Public Media | 01/14/2021 01/14/2021 | $69,20001/14/2021 $69,200 |
University of Washington Morning Senior Producer Morning Senior Producer | University of Washington University of Washington | 10/23/2020 10/23/2020 | $72,00010/23/2020 $72,000 |
Robert Half SR. Social Producer SR. Social Producer | Robert Half Robert Half | 04/24/2020 04/24/2020 | $93,91504/24/2020 $93,915 |
George Mason University Senior Producer/Director Senior Producer/Director | George Mason University George Mason University | 02/13/2020 02/13/2020 | $65,00002/13/2020 $65,000 |
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Senior Producer Resumes
Designing and figuring out what to include on your resume can be tough, not to mention time-consuming. That's why we put together a guide that is designed to help you craft the perfect resume for becoming a Senior Producer. If you're needing extra inspiration, take a look through our selection of templates that are specific to your job.
Learn How To Write a Senior Producer Resume
At Zippia, we went through countless Senior Producer resumes and compiled some information about how best to optimize them. Here are some suggestions based on what we found, divided by the individual sections of the resume itself.
View Detailed InformationTop Colleges for Senior Producers
1. Harvard University
Cambridge, MA • Private
2. Columbia University in the City of New York
New York, NY • Private
3. Northwestern University
Evanston, IL • Private
4. University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA • Public
5. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC • Public
6. University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA • Private
7. Emory University
Atlanta, GA • Private
8. University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX • Public
9. Northeastern University
Boston, MA • Private
10. California State University - Long Beach
Long Beach, CA • Public
Top Skills For a Senior Producer
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 11.4% of senior producers listed project management on their resume, but soft skills such as communication skills and leadership skills are important as well.
- Project Management, 11.4%
- Online, 10.7%
- Video Production, 9.7%
- Content Marketing, 5.3%
- Facebook, 4.1%
- Other Skills, 58.8% See All Senior Producer Skills
Best States For a Senior Producer
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a senior producer. The best states for people in this position are California, Oklahoma, Utah, and Nevada. Senior producers make the most in California with an average salary of $124,515. Whereas in Oklahoma and Utah, they would average $123,277 and $122,404, respectively. While senior producers would only make an average of $120,245 in Nevada, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. Utah
$122,404
Avg. Salary
2. California
$124,515
Avg. Salary
3. Colorado
$105,456
Avg. Salary
How Do Senior Producer Rate Their Jobs?
Top Senior Producer Employers
We've made finding a great employer to work for easy by doing the hard work for you. We looked into employers that employ senior producers and discovered their number of senior producer opportunities and average salary. Through our research, we concluded that CNN was the best, especially with an average salary of $86,868. The Walt Disney Company follows up with an average salary of $144,901, and then comes Reinsurance Group of America with an average of $116,850. In addition, we know most people would rather work from home. So instead of having to change careers, we identified the best employers for remote work as a senior producer. The employers include USAA, Activision Blizzard, and AKQA
Senior Producer Videos
