How To Become A Vice President Research: What It Is and Career Path

What is a vice president research and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

The vice president of research is a company executive that leads the research and development of products, services, and company strategies. They serve as the main overseer of all research efforts and are the point person for critical decisions within the department.

Aside from these primary responsibilities, the vice president of research is also responsible for creating new methods to improve research strategies, optimize the department's working environment, and streamline research processes. Their duties also include communicating progress upgrades to other company executives and people involved in the research project.

Behind a vice president of research is usually a strong educational background and extensive experience within the industry. They are usually master's or doctorate graduates of finance, business, marketing, and other related degrees and have years, if not decades of experience in a lower managerial role. Moreover, a successful vice president of research displays excellent research, leadership, strategy, and people management skills.

Since this position is critical to a company's success, the VP of research makes a whopping $162,000 per year, on average.

ScoreVice President ResearchUS Average

Salary

9.1

Avg. Salary $157,723

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

4.9

Growth rate 19%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.0

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.13%

Asian 11.60%

Black or African American 5.12%

Hispanic or Latino 12.24%

Unknown 4.99%

White 65.91%

Gender

female 32.51%

male 67.49%

Age - 34

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 - 34

Stress level

4.9

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.2

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

4.6

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a vice president research

Explore vice president research education requirements

Most common vice president research degrees

Bachelor's

62.1 %

Master's

26.3 %

Doctorate

7.7 %

Start to develop specific vice president research skills

Skills	Percentages
Portfolio	8.44%
Market Research	7.33%
Risk Management	4.44%
Research Projects	4.32%
Macro	3.70%

Complete relevant vice president research training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New vice president research 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 vice president research based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real vice president research resumes.

Research vice president research duties and responsibilities

Lead customer and competitor research, functional acquisition due diligence, and portfolio management of existing products/services and new investments.
Assimilate consumption-based planning and analysis; review in-depth data on business performance analytics for insight into specific network programming trends.
Create budgetary protocol and project proposals that are successfully implement by Bloomberg.

Get vice president research experience

Generally, it takes 4-6 years to become a vice president research. The most common roles before becoming a vice president research include vice president, research associate team lead and director.

Prepare your vice president research resume

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

Choose from 10+ customizable vice president research resume templates

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