---
title: "Spa Manager"
description: "Plan, direct, or coordinate activities of a spa facility. Coordinate programs, schedule and direct staff, and oversee financial activities."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/spa-manager"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Spa Manager

**Category:** Management · **SOC code:** 11-9179 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 11-9179.02

Plan, direct, or coordinate activities of a spa facility. Coordinate programs, schedule and direct staff, and oversee financial activities.

Also advertised as: Guest Experience Director; Massage Department Manager; Spa Director; Spa Operation Manager; Spa Operations Manager (Spa Ops Manager); Spa Supervisor.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $69,770 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $33.54/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $44,910 to $118,710, with the middle half between $54,130 and $94,440
- **Total US employment:** 10,450
- **Typical entry education:** High school
- **Preparation required:** Some preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +6.2% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 2,000 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 53/100 — 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 10,450 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $44,910 |
| 25th | $54,130 |
| 50th (median) | $69,770 |
| 75th | $94,440 |
| 90th | $118,710 |
| Mean (average) | $78,190 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| WI | $104,860 | $111,441 | 60 |
| VT | $99,570 | $101,646 | 30 |
| HI | $88,130 | $80,154 | 110 |
| MD | $83,990 | $80,022 | 510 |
| CO | $83,080 | $80,619 | 30 |
| CA | $77,840 | $70,303 | 2,010 |
| NJ | $77,350 | $71,090 | 170 |
| WA | $75,700 | $70,739 | 50 |
| NC | $73,990 | $78,441 | 240 |
| GA | $73,720 | $76,558 | 140 |
| PA | $72,640 | $74,448 | 280 |
| TN | $72,360 | $78,763 | 170 |
| IA | $69,720 | $79,442 | 230 |
| VA | $65,800 | $65,082 | 80 |
| NY | $65,150 | $60,368 | 410 |

12 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 27 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/spa-manager/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/spa-manager.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 25,500 in the 2025–2035 base year to 27,100 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 1,600 jobs, or +6.2%. Faster than average: 6.2% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 2,000 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:** High school diploma or equivalent (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Some preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** Less than 5 years.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** None.

## What the work involves

- Respond to customer inquiries or complaints.
- Inform staff of job responsibilities, performance expectations, client service standards, or corporate policies and guidelines.
- Develop staff service or retail goals and guide staff in goal achievement.
- Train staff in the use or sale of products, programs, or activities.
- Schedule guest appointments.
- Assess employee performance and suggest ways to improve work.
- Coordinate facility schedules to maximize usage and efficiency.
- Schedule staff or supervise scheduling.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Speaking — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — 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.

- Social Perceptiveness — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Management of Personnel Resources — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Customer and Personal Service — importance 5.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Sales and Marketing — importance 4.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 4.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administrative — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — 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

## 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 | 4.91 |
| S — Social | 4.19 |
| R — Realistic | 2.50 |
| A — Artistic | 1.84 |
| I — Investigative | 1.31 |

### 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 | 85.7 |
| ESTJ | 76.9 |
| ENFJ | 70.9 |
| ESFP | 67.7 |
| ENTJ | 62.8 |

Best-fitting types: ESFJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Fitness and Wellness Coordinator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/fitness-and-wellness-coordinator) — median $69,770
- [First-Line Supervisor of Personal Service Workers](https://nuecareer.com/careers/first-line-supervisor-of-personal-service-workers) — median $48,590
- [Skincare Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/skincare-specialist) — median $45,330
- [Lodging Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/lodging-manager) — median $69,250
- [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
- [Medical and Health Services Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/medical-and-health-services-manager) — median $123,860
- [Massage Therapist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/massage-therapist) — median $58,450
- [Hairstylist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/hairstylist) — median $35,790
- [First-Line Supervisor of Housekeeping and Janitorial Workers](https://nuecareer.com/careers/first-line-supervisor-of-housekeeping-and-janitorial-workers) — median $49,100
- [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

## 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/spa-manager