---
title: "Retail District Manager"
description: "Oversees a group of retail stores in a region, leading store managers on sales, staffing, operations and customer experience."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/retail-district-manager"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Retail District Manager

**Category:** Sales and Related · **SOC code:** 41-1011 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 41-1011.00

Oversees a group of retail stores in a region, leading store managers on sales, staffing, operations and customer experience.

Also advertised as: District Manager; Area Manager, Retail; Multi-Unit Retail Manager; Regional Store Manager; Retail Area Supervisor.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $48,520 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $23.33/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $33,120 to $77,080, with the middle half between $38,590 and $62,130
- **Total US employment:** 1,121,800
- **Typical entry education:** High school
- **Preparation required:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** -3.7% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 113,500 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 54/100 — 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 1,121,800 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $33,120 |
| 25th | $38,590 |
| 50th (median) | $48,520 |
| 75th | $62,130 |
| 90th | $77,080 |
| Mean (average) | $53,380 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| WA | $60,750 | $56,769 | 27,640 |
| RI | $58,570 | $57,264 | 3,880 |
| DC | $58,470 | $53,202 | 1,470 |
| NY | $58,300 | $54,021 | 50,830 |
| CO | $58,200 | $56,476 | 26,390 |
| MA | $57,490 | $54,360 | 20,240 |
| NJ | $57,320 | $52,681 | 31,160 |
| AK | $57,080 | $55,765 | 3,030 |
| SD | $56,680 | $63,983 | 3,660 |
| CT | $56,510 | $54,541 | 13,910 |
| HI | $55,850 | $50,795 | 6,580 |
| VT | $55,760 | $56,922 | 2,310 |
| DE | $55,710 | $55,817 | 4,200 |
| CA | $54,870 | $49,557 | 109,180 |
| ME | $53,580 | $55,209 | 5,760 |

39 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 54 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/retail-district-manager/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/retail-district-manager.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 1,419,800 in the 2025–2035 base year to 1,367,400 by the end of the cycle — a loss of 52,500 jobs, or -3.7%. Declining: -3.7% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 113,500 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:** High school diploma or equivalent (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** Less than 5 years.
- **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 |
| --- | --- |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 51.7% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 18.9% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 14.1% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 8.9% |
| Some College Courses | 6.1% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 0.4% |

## What the work involves

- Visit stores to review sales floor standards and operations
- Coach store managers on sales and profit goals
- Hire and train store managers
- Review labor scheduling, payroll and expenses
- Monitor inventory shrink and loss prevention results
- Roll out new merchandising programs and store layouts
- Report district results to regional leadership

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — 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.

- Service Orientation — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Management of Personnel Resources — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Sales and Marketing — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Personnel and Human Resources — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Clarity — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Recognition — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 3.1 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 | 7.00 |
| C — Conventional | 5.67 |
| S — Social | 4.47 |
| R — Realistic | 2.75 |
| I — Investigative | 1.14 |
| A — Artistic | 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 | 85.9 |
| ESTJ | 81.0 |
| ENFJ | 65.5 |
| ESFP | 64.9 |
| ISFJ | 64.8 |

Best-fitting types: ESFJ, ESTJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [First-Line Supervisor of Retail Sales Workers](https://nuecareer.com/careers/first-line-supervisor-of-retail-sales-workers) — median $48,520
- [First-Line Supervisor of Non-Retail Sales Workers](https://nuecareer.com/careers/first-line-supervisor-of-non-retail-sales-workers) — median $87,520
- [First-Line Supervisor of Office and Administrative Support Workers](https://nuecareer.com/careers/first-line-supervisor-of-office-and-administrative-support-workers) — median $69,500
- [First-Line Supervisor of Food Preparation and Serving Workers](https://nuecareer.com/careers/first-line-supervisor-of-food-preparation-and-serving-workers) — median $44,080
- [First-Line Supervisor of Entertainment and Recreation Workers, Except Gambling Services](https://nuecareer.com/careers/first-line-supervisor-of-entertainment-and-recreation-workers) — median $48,560
- [First-Line Supervisor of Housekeeping and Janitorial Workers](https://nuecareer.com/careers/first-line-supervisor-of-housekeeping-and-janitorial-workers) — median $49,100
- [Sales Representative of Services, Except Advertising, Insurance, Financial Services, and Travel](https://nuecareer.com/careers/sales-representative-of-services) — median $69,990
- [First-Line Supervisor of Mechanics, Installers, and Repairers](https://nuecareer.com/careers/first-line-supervisor-of-mechanics-installers-and-repairers) — median $79,860
- [First-Line Supervisor of Material-Moving Machine and Vehicle Operators](https://nuecareer.com/careers/first-line-supervisor-of-material-moving-machine-and-vehicle-operators) — median $62,840
- [First-Line Supervisor of Personal Service Workers](https://nuecareer.com/careers/first-line-supervisor-of-personal-service-workers) — median $48,590

## 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/retail-district-manager