---
title: "Private Equity Operating Partner"
description: "A former executive who works for a private equity firm to improve the operations of the companies it owns, from pricing to hiring to cost control."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/private-equity-operating-partner"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Private Equity Operating Partner

**Category:** Management · **SOC code:** 11-1011 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 11-1011.00

A former executive who works for a private equity firm to improve the operations of the companies it owns, from pricing to hiring to cost control.

Also advertised as: Operating Partner; Operating Executive, Private Equity; Portfolio Operations Partner; Value Creation Partner; Head of Portfolio Operations.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $213,990 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $102.88/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $75,700 to $507,730, with the middle half between $129,540 and $356,200
- **Total US employment:** 204,350
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +3.2% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 19,100 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 41/100 — 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 204,350 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $75,700 |
| 25th | $129,540 |
| 50th (median) | $213,990 |
| 75th | $356,200 |
| 90th | $507,730 |
| Mean (average) | $269,630 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| OR | $341,630 | $330,521 | 910 |
| WA | $339,810 | $317,541 | 3,170 |
| IL | $331,920 | $332,059 | 4,620 |
| NC | $314,290 | $333,196 | 1,930 |
| VA | $310,740 | $307,347 | 4,870 |
| NJ | $310,440 | $285,318 | 2,430 |
| CT | $295,120 | $284,837 | 1,660 |
| HI | $281,640 | $256,150 | 470 |
| SD | $280,900 | $317,093 | 510 |
| NY | $257,980 | $239,045 | 8,430 |
| TX | $257,850 | $265,669 | 8,780 |
| MI | $255,560 | $265,608 | 4,950 |
| IN | $254,180 | $272,348 | 1,820 |
| MD | $248,660 | $236,912 | 3,180 |
| RI | $235,360 | $230,113 | 460 |

33 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 48 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/private-equity-operating-partner/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/private-equity-operating-partner.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 291,600 in the 2025–2035 base year to 300,900 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 9,300 jobs, or +3.2%. About as fast as average: 3.2% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 19,100 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:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** 5 years or more.
- **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 |
| --- | --- |
| Master's Degree | 45.9% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 32.3% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 5.2% |
| Doctoral Degree | 4.9% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 4.5% |
| Post-Master's Certificate | 3.9% |

## What the work involves

- Assess management teams and operating upside during deal diligence
- Build hundred-day and value creation plans for newly acquired companies
- Recruit and evaluate chief executives and senior leaders
- Lead pricing, procurement, technology or sales improvement projects
- Serve as board chair or interim executive at portfolio companies
- Track operating metrics against the investment plan
- Share best practices and vendor programs across the portfolio

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Critical Thinking — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.3 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.

- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 4.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Evaluation — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Management of Financial Resources — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Management of Personnel Resources — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Administration and Management — importance 4.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Personnel and Human Resources — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Economics and Accounting — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Public Safety and Security — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Clarity — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 4.1 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 | 6.96 |
| C — Conventional | 5.39 |
| S — Social | 4.21 |
| I — Investigative | 3.05 |
| A — Artistic | 2.16 |
| R — Realistic | 1.26 |

### 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 | 73.5 |
| ESTJ | 70.6 |
| ENFJ | 67.9 |
| ENTJ | 66.6 |
| ESFP | 59.6 |

Best-fitting types: ESFJ, ESTJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Chief Executive](https://nuecareer.com/careers/chief-executive) — median $213,990
- [General and Operations Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/general-and-operations-manager) — median $105,770
- [Management Analyst](https://nuecareer.com/careers/management-analyst) — median $101,860
- [Treasurer and Controller](https://nuecareer.com/careers/treasurer-and-controller) — median $166,570
- [Social and Community Service Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/social-and-community-service-manager) — median $80,390
- [Public Relations Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/public-relations-manager) — median $146,910
- [Compliance Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/compliance-manager) — median $141,900
- [Education Administrator, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/education-administrator-postsecondary) — median $104,590
- [Legislator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/legislator) — median Not published by BLS
- [Financial Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/financial-manager) — median $166,570

## 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/private-equity-operating-partner