Management statistics connect the scale of management work with the quality of decisions, employee experience and leadership capacity. Recent measures cover U.S. employment and working conditions, U.K. management practices through 2023, global manager engagement in 2023, and organizational surveys conducted in 2024.
Contents
- Management workforce size, pay and outlook
- Requirements and working conditions
- Management-practice scores by year and sector
- Firm size, decisions and AI adoption
- Manager engagement, wellbeing and retention
- Capability and the leadership pipeline
Management workforce size, pay and outlook
The U.S. management workforce is large and highly compensated relative to the labor market overall. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 20.657 million people employed in management occupations in the 2024 annual average. In May 2024, the median annual wage for U.S. management occupations was $122,090, compared with $49,500 for all occupations. These are occupation-level medians, not a forecast or an average salary. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Management Occupations: Occupational Outlook Handbook
The same BLS outlook projects about 1.1 million openings in U.S. management occupations per year on average from 2024 to 2034. The figure is an annual average projection, so it should not be read as a count of vacancies observed in a particular month or year. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Management Occupations: Occupational Outlook Handbook
| U.S. management measure | Figure | Measurement period |
|---|---|---|
| Employment | 20.657 million | 2024 annual average |
| Median annual wage | $122,090 | May 2024 |
| Median wage, all occupations | $49,500 | May 2024 |
| Average annual openings | About 1.1 million | 2024–2034 projection |
The pay comparison is substantial: the management-occupation median was more than twice the all-occupation median in May 2024. That comparison describes two medians and does not establish the pay of a particular manager, industry or location.
Requirements and working conditions
Management roles generally combine responsibility for other people with prior experience. In 2025, prior work experience was required for 97.0% of U.S. management workers, while supervising others was required for 94.7%. On-the-job training was required for 53.4%, and a bachelor’s degree was required for 51.5%. These measures describe job requirements across the occupation, not a universal hiring rule for every management position. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Management workers
The work setting also shows considerable autonomy. Work was self-paced for 88.5% of U.S. management workers in 2025, and the choice to sit or stand while performing critical tasks was available to 90.5%. The ability to pause work for brief unscheduled breaks was available to 97.0%. At the same time, a supervisor was present in the immediate work area for 27.1%, indicating that autonomy does not mean the absence of oversight. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Management workers
Routine telework was allowed for 34.5% of management workers in 2025, while work schedules varied for 28.0%. Driving was required for 33.5%. These figures distinguish an occupation-wide snapshot from assumptions about office-based or remote management jobs. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Management workers
On average, U.S. management workers spent 74.8% of the workday sitting and 25.2% standing in 2025. The percentages describe average time allocation and should not be treated as a target schedule for individual workers. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Management workers
Management-practice scores by year and sector
The U.K. Office for National Statistics measures management practices on a scale from 0 to 1. The U.K. average score was 0.55 in 2023. Corrected historical averages were 0.49 in 2020, 0.48 in 2019 and 0.50 in 2016. Because the 2020, 2019 and 2016 figures are identified as corrected, they should remain labeled that way rather than being presented as independently rechecked estimates. Office for National Statistics, Management practices in the UK: 2016 to 2023
In 2023, services firms had an average score of 0.56, compared with 0.52 for production firms. Sector differences were wider: information and communication firms had the highest reported sector score at 0.64, while transportation and storage firms had the lowest at 0.46.
The score is a structured management-practice measure, not a direct percentage of effective managers or a measure of profitability. It is useful for comparing the reported practice environment across groups and periods, while retaining the source’s 0-to-1 scale.
Firm size, decisions and AI adoption
Firm size was associated with higher average management-practice scores in the U.K. 2023 data. Firms with 250 or more employees scored 0.68 on average. The corresponding scores were 0.65 for firms with 100 to 249 employees, 0.63 for firms with 50 to 99, 0.58 for firms with 20 to 49, and 0.51 for firms with 10 to 19 employees. These are group averages, not a rule that every larger firm manages better. Office for National Statistics, Management practices in the UK: 2016 to 2023
Among U.K. firms surveyed in 2023, 89% reported taking some action to improve management quality. Among firms taking action, 64% consulted employees about improvement areas, 43% carried out formal training online, 42% carried out formal training in person and 13% participated in government training programmes. These percentages describe different improvement activities and are not mutually exclusive.
Management practice was also associated with how firms analyzed important decisions. U.K. firms below the median management-practice score were four times more likely to use little or no analysis for important business decisions. They were three times less likely to use more complex analysis, such as a statistical or forecasting model. The ONS figures describe associations in the 2023 survey; they do not by themselves prove that a score caused a decision method.
AI adoption showed a similar difference by management-practice group. In 2023, 17% of U.K. firms with 10 or more employees had tested or adopted AI. The share was 37% among firms in the top management-practice decile and 3% among firms in the bottom decile. The comparison is between deciles and should not be interpreted as a forecast of future adoption. Office for National Statistics, Management practices in the UK: 2016 to 2023
Manager engagement, wellbeing and retention
Gallup’s 2023 global results found that 30% of managers were engaged at work, compared with 23% of employees overall. In Gallup best-practice organizations, 75% of managers and 70% of non-managers were engaged. Those organizations had 14 engaged employees for every actively disengaged employee. These results distinguish a global comparison from the best-practice group and should not be combined as if they represented one population. Gallup, State of the Global Workplace: 2024 Report
Gallup reported a country-level correlation of 0.58 between manager and non-manager engagement. Countries in the upper half of manager engagement were twice as likely to have engaged non-managers. Gallup also estimated that managers account for 70% of the variance in team engagement. The correlation and estimate show relationships in Gallup’s analysis, not a guarantee that changing one manager’s engagement will change a team’s result by a fixed amount.
Wellbeing and retention measures were less favorable. Globally, 40% of managers reported thriving in life in 2023, compared with 30% of non-managers. Daily stress was reported by 41% of managers and 40% of non-managers. Meanwhile, 56% of managers were watching for or actively seeking a new job, compared with 50% of non-managers. Gallup, State of the Global Workplace: 2024 Report
Capability and the leadership pipeline
In a 2024 survey of U.S. HR executives, 92% said people managers were critical to overall organizational success and 82% said they were critical to accomplishing strategic objectives. Yet only 25% made people-manager development a high priority and only 24% made people-manager wellbeing a high priority. Additionally, 51% said their organizations made inadequate investments in people-manager development. SHRM, Understanding the Diverse Views on Effective Management
Perceptions of effectiveness were higher than investment levels might suggest: 64% of surveyed U.S. workers and 70% of people managers rated their managers as highly effective in 2024. At the same time, 75% of surveyed people managers said balancing upper-management expectations with frontline demands was demanding, and 55% often felt caught between upper management’s strategic vision and their team’s practical realities. These are survey results, not a national performance rating for all managers.
DDI’s 2024 leadership data reported trust in immediate managers at 29%, a 37% decline from 2022. Among stressed leaders, 40% had considered leaving leadership roles to improve their wellbeing. High-potential individual contributors’ intention to depart rose from 13% in 2020 to 21% in 2024, and high-potential talent was 3.7 times more likely to leave within a year when managers did not regularly provide growth and development opportunities. DDI, New DDI Study Signals Looming Leadership Exodus
The capability gap extends to strategic change. Only 22% of HR teams in DDI’s 2024 survey prioritized the skills of setting strategy and managing change. Frontline managers were three times more likely than senior counterparts to report concerns about AI’s impact. Together, these figures identify development, trust, wellbeing and change leadership as distinct management risks measured in 2024, rather than as a single composite score.