---
title: "Grants Management Specialist"
description: "Manages the money, rules and reports behind government and foundation grants after they are awarded, for agencies, universities and nonprofits."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/grants-management-specialist"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Grants Management Specialist

**Category:** Business and Financial Operations · **SOC code:** 13-1131 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 13-1131.00

Manages the money, rules and reports behind government and foundation grants after they are awarded, for agencies, universities and nonprofits.

Also advertised as: Grants Manager; Grants Administrator; Post-Award Grants Specialist; Sponsored Programs Administrator; Grants Compliance Specialist.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $72,550 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $34.88/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $46,630 to $115,820, with the middle half between $57,480 and $92,180
- **Total US employment:** 111,040
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +5.5% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 10,000 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 37/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 111,040 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $46,630 |
| 25th | $57,480 |
| 50th (median) | $72,550 |
| 75th | $92,180 |
| 90th | $115,820 |
| Mean (average) | $77,200 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| DC | $80,840 | $73,557 | 2,350 |
| NY | $80,540 | $74,629 | 11,600 |
| MD | $79,780 | $76,011 | 2,010 |
| CA | $79,710 | $71,992 | 12,860 |
| MA | $79,060 | $74,756 | 6,160 |
| WA | $79,000 | $73,823 | 3,870 |
| CT | $77,730 | $75,022 | 1,350 |
| NJ | $77,170 | $70,925 | 1,950 |
| MN | $76,910 | $77,985 | 3,190 |
| ND | $76,040 | $85,478 | 340 |
| RI | $75,410 | $73,729 | 1,000 |
| CO | $74,440 | $72,235 | 2,470 |
| VA | $72,610 | $71,817 | 4,010 |
| VT | $72,530 | $74,042 | 510 |
| LA | $72,030 | $81,660 | 330 |

37 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 52 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/grants-management-specialist/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/grants-management-specialist.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 140,900 in the 2025–2035 base year to 148,700 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 7,800 jobs, or +5.5%. Faster than average: 5.5% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 10,000 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's degree (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Medium preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** None.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| Bachelor's Degree | 90.5% |
| Post-Baccalaureate Certificate | 4.8% |
| Master's Degree | 4.8% |

## What the work involves

- Review grant budgets and applications for compliance
- Set up awards in financial and grants management systems
- Track spending and approve budget revisions
- Prepare financial and progress reports for funders
- Monitor subrecipients and review their documentation
- Interpret federal Uniform Guidance and funder rules
- Support audits and respond to findings
- Close out completed grants and reconcile final costs

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Speaking — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Persuasion — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Analysis — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Sales and Marketing — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Communications and Media — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Economics and Accounting — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Expression — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Clarity — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Recognition — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Enterprising (E), Conventional (C), Social (S).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| E — Enterprising | 6.03 |
| C — Conventional | 4.66 |
| S — Social | 4.41 |
| A — Artistic | 3.22 |
| I — Investigative | 2.02 |
| R — Realistic | 1.00 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ESFJ | 77.9 |
| ENFJ | 77.5 |
| ESFP | 69.2 |
| ESTJ | 63.0 |
| ENTJ | 62.5 |

Best-fitting types: ESFJ, ENFJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Fundraiser](https://nuecareer.com/careers/fundraiser) — median $72,550
- [Fundraising Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/fundraising-manager) — median $125,470
- [Public Relations Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/public-relations-specialist) — median $74,750
- [Advertising and Promotions Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/advertising-and-promotions-manager) — median $133,660
- [Social and Community Service Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/social-and-community-service-manager) — median $80,390
- [Meeting, Convention, and Event Planner](https://nuecareer.com/careers/meeting-convention-and-event-planner) — median $61,160
- [Public Relations Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/public-relations-manager) — median $146,910
- [Financial Advisor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/financial-advisor) — median $105,070
- [Market Research Analyst and Marketing Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/market-research-analyst-and-marketing-specialist) — median $78,760
- [Marketing Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/marketing-manager) — median $166,790

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/grants-management-specialist