Product Management Statistics: 50+ Eye-Opening Insights

Top product management statistics

The demand for product managers is higher than ever.

But, this doesn’t mean that there’s a clear understanding of the tasks attributed to the product management position, or the difficulties a product manager may face.

The following product management statistics may open your eyes to the conceptions and misconceptions of product management.

The importance of product management:

• A fully optimized product manager could increase company profits by 34.2%

• 43.3% believe product managers are highly effective at boosting the company’s annual growth rate.

• 81% of respondents said they measure the success of their products

• 54% of product people are responsible for a mix of different type of products

• Professor Clayton Christensen of the Harvard Business School claims that nearly 30,000 new products are launched into the market each year to capture customers' attention.

• On average, businesses use around 80 IT-sanctioned SaaS applications.

• Business owners estimate that 70% of their current work-related applications are SaaS.

• Companies that have adopted cloud-based SaaS platforms report being able to boost their market growth by 20% to 40%.

The challenges for product managers:

• The top 3 challenges for product managers are competing objectives in the organization (56,4%), lack of time (50,8%) and lack of role clarity (35,0%)

• 60.3% of executives report only partially understanding the value product managers offer their companies.

• Only 40% of products that businesses produce stay on the market.

• 25,3% of product managers say that the company strategy is not very clear or not clear

• PMs spend 52% of their time on unplanned „fire-fighting“ activities

• 60% of businesses lack a plan to enhance their product management process. 

• 37.9% of product managers feel their backlog is disorganized.

• According to 15% of project managers, they need to focus on one project at a time.

• 30% of product managers identify internal politics as their primary challenge, a common obstacle across various roles.

The job market for product managers:

• As of August 22, 2020, research indicated that 698,945 individuals had listed their procession as product managers.

• A Quora user mentions that a LinkedIn search conducted in 2014 using the query "How many product managers are in the United States" yielded a count of 146,333. This suggests a growth of over half a million within approximately six years.

• In 2023, Glassdoor ranked the product manager position as the 4th best job in the United States.

• The average salary of a product manager in the US is 111,000 U.S. dollars. In Germany, it’s 66,000 euros and in India, it’s 37,000 U.S. dollars.

• In an entry-level position, the base salary for a product manager was $86,005 in 2021.

• The top 10% of highest-paid product managers earn $153,000 or more.

• According to the American software company Aha!, the median salary for product managers in San Francisco is $129,000. Additionally, the average annual salary for certain product managers at Google, Slack, Uber, and Microsoft can surpass $200,000.

• A survey of over 500,000 product managers found that 66.1% were male and 32.1% were female.

• On average, female product managers earn 7% less than their male counterparts.

• 64% of senior-level product manager roles are occupied by men.

• Washington offers product managers the best average annual salary, at $122,737.

• 55% of product managers prefer working for small to medium-sized businesses (SMEs) because these companies are flexible and open to experimenting with new ideas.

• 45% of product managers opt for larger companies offering more resources and better compensation, while 5% are open to working for companies that align with their personal preferences.

• As per the Wall Street Journal, 7% of recent Harvard Business School graduates took up roles in product management.

• A survey found that 26% of product managers had 3-5 years of experience, and  24% had 6-10 years of experience.

• Approximately 39% of the surveyed product managers were in the age group of 35-44 years.

• Interestingly, the same study conducted in 2019 revealed that 34% of product managers were aged between 30 and 39, while another 34% fell into the 40 to 49 age bracket. Additionally, 19% were in their fifties, whereas only 9% were in their twenties. 

• According to a recent Harvard Business School report, the number of applicants for the Product Management 101 course outnumbered available seats by threefold.

• The top recruitment source for product managers is the personal network (60%).

• 40.5% of product managers work in Software.

• By analyzing 41,262 product managers' resumes, it was found that, on average, product managers tend to stay in their positions for 1-2 years, accounting for 42% of the total.

Common problems for product managers:

• 39% say they worry about missing launch dates

• 42% say they worry about the difficulty to add new features because of the customers’ demand to support old features

• 28% worry that product launches do not meet management expectations

The role of a product manager:

• 56,5% say that product management is established but is still developing inside their organization

• 69% of respondents view product management as a leadership role.

• 43.3% say that product managers are seen as leaders and key differentiators inside their organization

• 26.6% say that PMs have a clear role, but others don’t understand it

• 46.2% of product managers are individual contributors, 43% are managers

• 69% believe that product management is a leadership role

• 80% of product managers engage in design-related activities.

• 60% of product managers possess fundamental analytics skills, which allow them to delve into metrics and derive insights independently without the need for analysts.

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Only 3 out of 10 product managers spend time strategizing

According to the Productside survey, only 28% of respondents reported spending time on strategizing. The majority, 72%, focused on tactics and execution. 

However, when questioned about the impact of this time allocation on project success, 61% expressed a desire to allocate more time to strategy, believing it would significantly influence project outcomes.

21% of products fail to meet customers’ needs

According to a Productside survey, respondents say that 1 out of 5 products fail to meet the customer needs, which makes a well-performing product manager even more important.

To meet your customer needs, you have to be aware of the problems your customers are facing and how your product can solve these problems. Failing to meet customer needs could be related to some skills product managers have. As from the survey:

56% stated that the skills of their product manager leave room for improvement

According to the report “Challenges in Product Management”, 56% of respondents stated their product manager’s skills as average or below average, stating that there is room for improvement.

These improvements could lead to meeting their customer needs in more than 4 out of 5 products.

41.2 % of respondents stated that product management within their company isn’t effective, which is related to the skill level of their product managers.

34% of departments report to product management

This percentage is relatively high, compared to the percentage of managing (23%) or marketing directors.

If you are looking for more authority from the different departments, you can use these stats to convince your top management how reporting routes should run through the organization, and what kind of prominent role you as a product manager can take.

Only 5% of product managers know how to code

Luckily for product managers, it’s often not mandatory to know how to code. Only 5% of product managers know how to do this.

But this makes it even more important to communicate with your different teams to get your idea implemented in the product. You have to trust in your team’s abilities.

If you do know how to code, this could give you an advantage when you want to apply for a product management job in software development.

As a product manager, you should never doubt your own value. For some management teams, it’s hard to overlook the possible opportunities a well-functioning product manager will bring.

Although the value and the exact role of a product manager might be undefined in some companies, well-developed product management can improve your product and alignment with your customers.

We hope you enjoyed learning about these product management statistics! Do you know about important statistics that we forgot to cover? Let us know in the comments!

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