Amidst uncertainty in manufacturing, AI adoption, labor market fluctuations, and salary disparities across industries and geographic regions, quality professional compensation can be difficult to navigate.

Without current job-level salary benchmarks, quality professionals from technicians to executives often enter salary negotiations with incomplete information, potentially lowering compensation and ending up with less-than-desired work arrangements. Similarly, organizations may struggle to develop appropriate compensation structures that both attract talent and maintain internal equity.

In response to these issues, the “Quality Professionals Salary Report” has been created to provide a comprehensive, regularly updated salary-intelligence tool focused exclusively on quality management compensation trends across the United States. Whether the reader is a job seeker, employer, or researcher, the report offers data and analysis to help professionals understand the changing quality management job market.

Unlike a traditional salary survey that may become outdated or rely on self-reported data from limited participant pools, this tool analyzes thousands of actual job postings from Indeed.com, one of the nation’s largest employment platforms. The report primarily examines salary and job listing trends for quality management roles ranging from executive and C-suite positions to entry-level technician positions. The three priorities for the report involve providing salary ranges by position, showing geographical variations, and highlighting the differences in compensation across industries. (Data can be filtered for specific urban areas and states to give more localized views. The job postings used to create these summary reports are listed after the charts on the results page.)

Note: For continuity, Q3 2025 is shown alongside earlier quarters but currently reflects September 2025 postings only; July and August 2025 were reserved for refining the collection and cleaning the logic of our methodology for future reports. All jobs used in the report compilation are provided below the graphs summarizing the results.

Our Top 10 findings

The current report covers the quality job market using the most recent and relevant data (between October 2024 and September 2025). It produced the following results and trends.

1. A still-active but cooling market, with a big reset at the top

The chart above documents the number of job postings by job level between October 2024 (Q4 2024) and September 2025 (Q3 2025).

We observed these key trends at all job levels:
• Q4 2024 was by far the busiest quarter, with 1,630 listings. Senior and executive postings were unusually strong.
• In Q1 2025, the market shifted sharply. Executive postings fell from 254 to 35 and senior management from 276 to 68. At the same time, lead roles surged from 155 to 342, while technician and midlevel roles dropped but remained substantial (259 and 201 postings, respectively).
• Q2 2025 brought a partial rebound in senior hiring. Executive listings nearly doubled from Q1, and senior management postings almost tripled. Lead roles stayed high, and midlevel management rose.
• Q3 2025, based on September only, shows a smaller sample but a clear tilt toward hands-on roles: 237 technician and 172 midlevel management postings vs. only 20 senior management and 10 executive roles.

2. Technician, midlevel management, and lead positions dominate the demand

Lead and technician roles together account for just over half of all postings, confirming that most advertised opportunities remain either frontline or first-line leadership rather than top-of-house positions. The large drop in executive openings after Q4 2024 suggests that organizations may have completed a wave of leadership restructuring and then shifted their focus to operational roles and implementation capacity.

3. Salary ladders: Clear progression, but some compression in the middle

Average salary by job level between October 2024 (Q4 2024) and September 2025 (Q3 2025)

Career progression clearly improves pay overall. But the data suggest a “compressed middle” where lead and midlevel managers carry added responsibility without a proportional salary increase. For professionals negotiating offers, especially for lead and midlevel roles, it might be worthwhile to scrutinize how responsibilities and authority compare to the relatively small pay step between those levels.

Looking across all four quarters and all locations:
• Executive-level roles offer average minimum salaries around $145,000 and average maximums near $197,000.
• Senior management roles cluster around $127,000 on the low end and $176,000 on the high end.
• Midlevel management roles average about $90,000 minimum and $119,000 maximum.
• Lead roles average roughly $80,000 minimum and $107,000 maximum.
• Technician roles sit near $52,000 minimum and $67,000 maximum.

Taken together, advertised executive pay is roughly 2.8 to 2.9 times technician salaries when comparing both the low and high ends of posted ranges.
However, the step between job levels isn’t uniform:
• Moving from technician to lead brings the largest typical jump; median minimum salaries rise by about 65%.
• The move from lead to midlevel management is comparatively modest, with only about a 9% increase in median minimum pay.
• From midlevel to senior management, the median minimum salary jumps by roughly 40%.
• Senior management to executive roles adds another ~17% at the low end.

4. Quarter by quarter, pay trends show some volatility

Average advertised salaries across all levels were highest in Q4 2024 and Q2 2025, with average minimums around $96,000 and $94,000, and maximums around $132,000 and $131,000, respectively.

Average salary by job level between October 2024 (Q4 2024) and September 2025 (Q3 2025)

Q1 2025 and September-only Q3 2025 showed lower averages, with minimums around $70,000 and maximums in the high $80,000s to mid-$90,000s. Those quarters were more heavily weighted toward technician and lead roles, which helps explain the lower overall averages.

For executives specifically, average salary ranges peaked in Q2 2025 (around $161,000–$236,000), even though the number of executive postings remained far below the Q4 2024 spike.

5. Remote and hybrid roles remain a minority—but they pay a premium

The patterns suggest that organizations often reserve flexible work for higher-responsibility positions and are willing to pay more for quality talent that can operate effectively outside traditional onsite structures. For technicians and leads in particular, remote or hybrid offers are relatively rare but significantly better compensated when they appear.

Work arrangement is still one of the most important negotiation points for quality professionals. In the current dataset:
• About 87% of postings are onsite or list no remote/hybrid option.
• Roughly 7% are fully remote, and about 6% are hybrid.
• Combined, only about 13% of quality and regulatory positions explicitly offer remote or hybrid work.

Remote and hybrid opportunities aren’t evenly distributed across job levels:
• Senior management has the highest share of remote and hybrid postings (about 18%).
• Executive level follows at roughly 15%.
• Lead roles come next at around 14%.
• Midlevel management sits near 9%.
• Technician roles have the lowest share, with only about 6% offering remote or hybrid arrangements.

When remote or hybrid work is available, it tends to come with higher pay. Using average salaries for each level:
• Technicians in remote or hybrid roles earn about 34% more on average than onsite peers.
• Lead roles see roughly a 17% premium.
• Midlevel management enjoys about an 11% premium.
• Senior management sees about a 7% bump.

Executive roles also show a small premium of roughly 2%.

6. California led the nation in the number of job listings, followed by Illinois and New York

California dominated with 649 listings, followed by Illinois, New York, Ohio, and Texas. 

7. Only 6% of all postings were in populous cities; Chicago leads in number of listings; New York and San Diego are highest in pay

The top 10 populous U.S. cities only accounted for about 6% of all postings. Most quality jobs are still in smaller manufacturing hubs and metro suburbs rather than the biggest city centers.
• Among the 10 most populous U.S. cities, Chicago led in job listings with 63 postings, followed closely by San Diego (44) and New York (42).
• Based on average posted salary ranges, New York has the highest compensation, with average advertised ranges around $136k–$186k (median $125k–$180k) and a strong concentration of executive roles.
• San Diego is next, at roughly $120k–$160k (median $111k–$144k) with many lead and senior management roles.
• Houston and Phoenix are lower, roughly $76k–$91k and $82k–$106k respectively. Dallas is the clear low outlier among the big cities, averaging only about $58k–$64k.

Overall, the top 10 cities collectively average about $100k–$134k, which is roughly 15–17% higher than the average for all postings nationwide (~$86k–$118k).

8. ‘Quality Assurance Manager’ and ‘Quality Manager’ were the most frequent job titles

Other common job titles include:
• Quality Control Technician—74 postings
• Quality Control Inspector —60 postings
• Quality Assurance Specialist—55 postings
• Supplier Quality Engineer—46 postings

9. Remote and hybrid flexibility is concentrated in senior roles

Remote/hybrid options aren’t evenly distributed across the market. Roughly 22% of senior management postings and 18% of executive-level postings offer some form of remote or hybrid work, compared with only about 7% of technician roles and 10% of midlevel management roles. In other words, the people most tied to production floors and inspection lines have the least access to flexibility, even though technicians make up the single largest share of postings in the dataset.

10. High-paying quality roles cluster in a handful of states

Among states with substantial hiring activity (more than 50 postings), a small group clearly leads on pay. California, Maryland, Washington, Colorado, and Massachusetts all show average minimum advertised salaries above roughly $90,000 (with California above $105,000), while many high-volume Midwestern states—such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Missouri—tend to cluster in the low-to-mid $70,000s or below on the minimum side. That creates state-level gaps of 20–30% or more for comparable quality roles, even before factoring in cost of living.

About our methodology

Job postings have been categorized according to seniority level: executive level, senior management, midlevel management, lead role, and technician.

The report is also not a survey of current quality management professionals. Instead, it’s based on publicly available salary data from job postings on Indeed. This approach allows more up-to-date, market-reflective insights every month, because Indeed.com is one of the most popular job boards online with a large database of job postings. (The objective is to create a categorization system that provides meaningful insights and supports reader analysis objectives. Because of this iterative process, data collection and reporting methods may be adjusted as more data and feedback are gained.)

How to use this report

Job seekers: Individuals exploring careers in quality management or seeking to advance their existing roles can better understand the career progression and opportunities within the field. The salary ranges associated with each category offer transparency and help job seekers set realistic expectations when negotiating compensation packages. This knowledge empowers job seekers to make informed decisions about their career paths, target appropriate positions, and ultimately achieve their professional goals in the quality management domain.

Employers: For employers, this report serves as a benchmarking tool to ensure that their compensation packages remain competitive in attracting and retaining top talent. By seeing the industry standards for salaries across different job categories, employers can adjust their offerings accordingly. This is particularly useful with tight, competitive job markets where skilled quality management professionals are in high demand. Furthermore, this report can inform talent management strategies by using the data to identify potential skill gaps within their teams and make informed decisions.

Researchers and industry analysts: For researchers and analysts, this report offers a large dataset to explore various aspects of the quality management job market. Researchers can identify patterns, trends, and disparities within the field by examining the categorization structure and associated salary ranges. This analysis can lead to valuable insights into factors influencing compensation. Researchers can also build on this dataset by incorporating additional variables, such as education levels, years of experience, and certifications.