Skills
56 skills are associated with this occupation.
0 skills selected
Essential knowledge
4 skills
Essential skills / competences
15 skills
Optional knowledge
11 skills
Optional skills / competences
26 skills
Overview
Product development managers coordinate new products from briefing to prototype and improvement, balancing design, technical requirements, costs and market needs.
In job descriptions, look for market research, product life-cycle, design costs, production costs, prototypes, user experience, technical requirements, budgets and cooperation with engineers.
Explore this occupation
Open in Job ExplorerWhat the work can involve
Product development managers turn briefs, market research and technical possibilities into new or improved products. The work links design choices, prototypes, production costs, customer experience, engineering input and decisions about when a concept is ready to move forward.
Skills and specializations
Useful strengths include market research, product life-cycle thinking, budget management, prototype design, technical requirements and customer experience design. Specialization may sit in industrial products, digital products, metal components, innovation processes or quality improvement.
Salary context
Salary context depends on budget size, team leadership, product complexity, commercial impact, technical risk and responsibility for decisions across the product life-cycle. Roles with direct ownership of prototypes, engineering coordination and market launches carry different weight from support roles.
Career paths
Career paths often move from product design, engineering, market analysis or project coordination into product development leadership. Further development can lead to research and development management, innovation management, portfolio responsibility or wider commercial product roles.
Good to know
When reading vacancies, check whether the manager owns discovery, prototype work, production handover, market testing or post-launch improvement. Look for how the advert describes engineers, designers, customers, budgets and decision authority.
Editorial note
This guide is editorial career context. It is not official labour-market statistics or role-specific salary data.
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Alternative labels
Occupation group
research and development manager (1223.2)
Source facts
| ESCO URI | http://data.europa.eu/esco/occupation/1488589a-7b83-471d-b094-492f5616f4e0 |
|---|---|
| ESCO code | 1223.2.1 |
| ISCO group | 1223 |
| Concept type | Occupation |