Research and Development Manager
A Research and Development Manager oversees research teams and innovation projects within manufacturing, pharmaceutical, technology, or engineering organisations in Australia. They direct the planning, execution, and commercialisation of research programmes, manage budgets and timelines, and ensure compliance with relevant standards and intellectual property frameworks.
What this job is
A Research and Development Manager oversees research teams and innovation projects within manufacturing, pharmaceutical, technology, or engineering organisations in Australia. They direct the planning, execution, and commercialisation of research programmes, manage budgets and timelines, and ensure compliance with relevant standards and intellectual property frameworks. They bridge technical research capability with organisational strategy and commercial outcomes.
Are employers advertising this role?
Falling, down 37.5% over 5 years
Counted across a group of similar roles. These are three-month rolling averages of online job advertisements, not filled positions.
Source: Jobs and Skills Australia, Internet Vacancy Index.
Day-to-day
Develop and articulate research programme objectives aligned with organisational strategy and market opportunity. Direct research teams through planning, experimentation, prototyping, and validation phases of product or process development. Manage R&D budgets, procurement of equipment and materials, and allocation of resources across concurrent projects. Establish and monitor key performance indicators for research productivity, time to market, and return on investment. Conduct and review technical feasibility studies to determine viability of proposed innovations or improvements. Liaise with patent attorneys and IP managers to protect intellectual property and lodge applications with IP Australia. Ensure research activities comply with relevant Australian Standards (AS/NZS), industry regulations, and safety requirements under Safe Work Australia framework. Conduct or oversee testing and validation against Australian Consumer Law requirements or relevant product standards before commercialisation.
Who does this now
About 19,800 people worked in this occupation across Australia at the 2021 Census.
What this role asks for
Bachelor degree or higher (ABS skill level 1)
Can employers fill these jobs
Employers hiring for this occupation were generally able to find suitable applicants in 2025. Ratings are not the same everywhere. NT was rated in shortage. This measures how hard employers found it to fill jobs. It is not a count of jobs, and it does not say whether the occupation is growing.
Requirements
The standard entry pathway requires a bachelor degree or higher (ABS Skill Level 1). Specific qualification requirements vary by employer and state. Some employers may accept equivalent experience. Check yourcareer.gov.au for available courses and dewr.gov.au/skills-reform/free-tafe for subsidised training options.
The honest hard part
You'll need deep technical credibility in your field to be taken seriously by research teams, which is hard to build as a career changer. R&D budgets are often first to cut in downturns, making job security shaky. You're also caught between researchers who want unlimited time to explore and executives demanding faster commercialisation: that tension never goes away.
Where the jobs are
Some regional pockets exist around mining services and food processing. Remote work is rare: you need to be on-site to lead teams and access labs. Most positions are in larger organisations; small firms can't usually afford dedicated R&D managers.
Pay
Published for ANZSCO unit group 1325, the wider group this job sits in, not for this job on its own.
This is the median for full-time employees who are not managers and are paid at the adult rate, before tax and salary sacrifice. It is a guide to what the work pays, not a wage rate.
Source: ABS Survey of Employee Earnings and Hours, May 2025, customised report.
Skills
- Goal Setting and Planningcore
- Problem Solvingcore
- Process Improvement Identificationcore
- Regulatory and Legislative Awarenesscore
- Report Writingcore
- Reporting and Analyticscore
- Research and Analysiscore
- Risk Identificationcore
- Stakeholder Communicationcore
- Team Collaborationcore
- Verbal Communicationcore
- Written Communicationcore
- Adaptability and Flexibility
- Continuous Learning and Upskilling
- Microsoft Office Suite Proficiency
- Negotiation
- Power BI Reporting and Dashboards
- Process Documentation
- Quality Assurance Monitoring
- Time Management and Prioritisation
- Workload Self-Management
Which of these do you have?
Tick the ones you haveCommon questions
Sources
- ABS OSCA 2024, occupation definition and task statements
- ABS Survey of Employee Earnings and Hours, May 2025, customised report.
- ABS, 2021 Census of Population and Housing based on usual place of residence (Custom Report). OSCA Experimental Estimates.
Role data is drawn from official Australian Government sources, and each figure names where it comes from. Where a role is not in the ABS classification, the page shows no government figures for it. Data may not reflect every local variation.
What Research and Development Manager workers move into, from ten years of tax records.
Last updated: 30 October 2026
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