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The differences between team leaders and senior team leads can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 4-6 years to become both a team leader and a senior team lead. Additionally, a senior team lead has an average salary of $115,480, which is higher than the $68,817 average annual salary of a team leader.
The top three skills for a team leader include customer service, ladders and patients. The most important skills for a senior team lead are customer service, patients, and project management.
| Team Leader | Senior Team Lead | |
| Yearly salary | $68,817 | $115,480 |
| Hourly rate | $33.09 | $55.52 |
| Growth rate | 8% | 28% |
| Number of jobs | 197,336 | 65,635 |
| Job satisfaction | 5 | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 50% | Bachelor's Degree, 64% |
| Average age | 43 | 47 |
| Years of experience | 6 | 6 |
Team leaders are responsible for managing a team for a specific project or work component. They primarily guide the team members and ensure that they are still working towards the set goals. Team leaders create strategies to reach goals, cascade the goals and strategies to team members, assign tasks, conduct periodic check-ups on the roadmap towards the goals, foster an engaging work environment, motivate and coach team members, monitor team performance, evaluate the strategies and come up with mitigating plans as needed. They are also responsible for reporting the team's progress to higher management.
A senior team lead specializes in spearheading operations in a particular team or department. Although the responsibilities will vary according to the line of work or one's employment industry, most of it will revolve around overseeing the team's performance and ensuring that everything is running smoothly. It is also the senior team lead that sets the budget and goals most of the time, encouraging staff to meet them. Furthermore, as a senior officer in the team, it is vital to be a role model, shaping employees into valuable workforce members.
Team leaders and senior team leads have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Team Leader | Senior Team Lead | |
| Average salary | $68,817 | $115,480 |
| Salary range | Between $37,000 And $126,000 | Between $81,000 And $163,000 |
| Highest paying City | New York, NY | San Francisco, CA |
| Highest paying state | Alaska | Oregon |
| Best paying company | Ropes & Gray | The Walt Disney Company |
| Best paying industry | - | - |
There are a few differences between a team leader and a senior team lead in terms of educational background:
| Team Leader | Senior Team Lead | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 50% | Bachelor's Degree, 64% |
| Most common major | Business | Business |
| Most common college | SUNY College of Technology at Delhi | California State University - Bakersfield |
Here are the differences between team leaders' and senior team leads' demographics:
| Team Leader | Senior Team Lead | |
| Average age | 43 | 47 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 55.0% Female, 45.0% | Male, 57.3% Female, 42.7% |
| Race ratio | Black or African American, 8.9% Unknown, 4.7% Hispanic or Latino, 17.0% Asian, 7.2% White, 61.6% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.7% | Black or African American, 10.4% Unknown, 4.9% Hispanic or Latino, 17.3% Asian, 6.1% White, 60.7% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.7% |
| LGBT Percentage | 9% | 8% |