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Service desk manager vs information technology manager

The differences between service desk managers and information technology managers can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 6-8 years to become both a service desk manager and an information technology manager. Additionally, an information technology manager has an average salary of $119,589, which is higher than the $101,229 average annual salary of a service desk manager.

The top three skills for a service desk manager include customer service, ITIL and ITSM. The most important skills for an information technology manager are customer service, project management, and database.

Service desk manager vs information technology manager overview

Service Desk ManagerInformation Technology Manager
Yearly salary$101,229$119,589
Hourly rate$48.67$57.49
Growth rate16%16%
Number of jobs69,990108,179
Job satisfaction-5
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 58%Bachelor's Degree, 64%
Average age4747
Years of experience88

What does a service desk manager do?

In the information technology industry, a service desk manager resolves technical issues and concerns, ensuring efficiency and client satisfaction. They typically focus on addressing systems and application errors, troubleshooting problems, providing step-by-step solutions, or referring clients to other services. They may also provide administrative support to offices by managing schedules, preparing and processing documents, and providing technical support. Moreover, as a manager, it is essential to lead and encourage teams to reach goals, all while implementing the company's policies and regulations.

What does an information technology manager do?

An information technology manager is responsible for supervising tasks for the company's network and information systems operations. Information technology managers require excellent knowledge of the information systems industry, a strong command of programming languages, and software and hardware application processes. An information technology manager reviews the performance of the IT department staff, ensuring that networks and systems maintain the highest quality and efficiency, and adjusting the specific system updates as needed. Information technology managers monitor the security of the system's database and identify business opportunities to utilize all business systems to improve the company's services.

Service desk manager vs information technology manager salary

Service desk managers and information technology managers have different pay scales, as shown below.

Service Desk ManagerInformation Technology Manager
Average salary$101,229$119,589
Salary rangeBetween $72,000 And $141,000Between $84,000 And $169,000
Highest paying CityCarson City, NVRichmond, CA
Highest paying stateCaliforniaNew Hampshire
Best paying companyCLEAResultMeta
Best paying industryFinance-

Differences between service desk manager and information technology manager education

There are a few differences between a service desk manager and an information technology manager in terms of educational background:

Service Desk ManagerInformation Technology Manager
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 58%Bachelor's Degree, 64%
Most common majorBusinessComputer Science
Most common collegeCarnegie Mellon UniversityCarnegie Mellon University

Service desk manager vs information technology manager demographics

Here are the differences between service desk managers' and information technology managers' demographics:

Service Desk ManagerInformation Technology Manager
Average age4747
Gender ratioMale, 64.2% Female, 35.8%Male, 84.5% Female, 15.5%
Race ratioBlack or African American, 6.8% Unknown, 5.2% Hispanic or Latino, 10.2% Asian, 12.6% White, 65.0% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2%Black or African American, 6.6% Unknown, 5.2% Hispanic or Latino, 9.9% Asian, 12.7% White, 65.4% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2%
LGBT Percentage11%11%

Differences between service desk manager and information technology manager duties and responsibilities

Service desk manager example responsibilities.

  • Manage key financial relationships, working with VIP reps in various institutions.
  • Ensure efficient allocation of resources and skills to achieve contractual KPIs within financial constraints.
  • Deploy and manage environmental controls, backup strategies, ITSM software, and monitoring systems.
  • Manage staff and activities necessary to effectively coordinate the service request fulfillment life-cycle of base on ITSM best practices.
  • Manage all incident and service requests and oversee all change management, configuration management, and release management ITIL processes.
  • Manage LAN software/hardware installation and upgrade efforts.
  • Show more

Information technology manager example responsibilities.

  • Manage all systems onboarding & offboarding of all employees, manage all account access on all company systems & equipment setup.
  • Manage NFS mounts from NAS devices and setup auto-mounts for the server farm.
  • Manage applications support for Lawson, Meditech, ChartMaxx and McKesson PACs system.
  • Negotiate and manage the company through several Telecom agreements for voice, data and wireless.
  • Manage production turnovers by conducting performance tests, and reviewing SQL coding standards and methods.
  • Manage 3rd party vendors supporting legacy 3Com, Avaya, Nortel, and Cisco platforms.
  • Show more

Service desk manager vs information technology manager skills

Common service desk manager skills
  • Customer Service, 15%
  • ITIL, 8%
  • ITSM, 5%
  • Infrastructure, 4%
  • Technical Support, 4%
  • Service Delivery, 4%
Common information technology manager skills
  • Customer Service, 12%
  • Project Management, 9%
  • Database, 4%
  • Network Infrastructure, 4%
  • SAN, 3%
  • SQL Server, 3%

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