The Datum Report

Occupation 1121 · Managers, directors and senior officials

Production managers and directors in manufacturing

Half of full-time production managers and directors in manufacturing in the UK earn more than £58,640 a year, and half earn less.

Production managers and directors in manufacturing plan, organise, direct and co-ordinate the activities and resources necessary for production in manufacturing industries including the maintenance of engineering items, equipment and machinery.

How people enter it

There are no pre-set entry standards. Entry is possible with either a degree or equivalent qualification, and/or relevant experience. On-the-job training is provided, and professional qualifications are available, as are S/NVQs in Management at levels 3 to 5.

What the work involves

• liaises with other managers to plan overall production activity and daily manufacturing activity, sets quality standards and estimates timescales and costs
• manages production to ensure that orders are completed to an agreed date and conform to customer and other requirements
• monitors production and production costs and undertakes or arranges for the preparation of reports and records
• oversees supervision of the production line and its staff, ensures targets are met

Also called

Engineering manager · Managing director (engineering) · Operations manager (manufacturing) · Production manager · Technical manager

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for production managers and directors in manufacturing, full-time employees, 2023 to 2025. Each point is that year's ASHE April snapshot as published — revisions are not backfilled into earlier years, and a year ONS withheld is a gap rather than a joined line.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Year-on-year change

The change from each year to the next, in per cent, computed from the figures in the chart above — so the two cannot disagree.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Pay by region

Median gross annual pay for full-time employees, ranked, against the UK figure. 10 of 11 regions are published: ONS withholds a cell where the survey sample cannot support it, and those are shown as gaps rather than dropped — an absent region is not a region without the work in it.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Period 2025. Table

Every regional figure

ONS does not publish occupational pay below region. Cells the survey could not support are shown as withheld, with its reason — adding a region split to a specific occupation leaves roughly a tenth of cells publishable.

Common questions

Classified alongside this

Production managers and directors in construction · Production managers and directors in mining and energy