How to Become an IT Manager (Honest Path)

You’ve been the person everyone calls when systems break. You’ve solved problems nobody else could figure out. Now you’re wondering: is management the next step?

Here’s what most career guides won’t tell you upfront: moving into IT management isn’t a promotion—it’s a career change. The skills that made you an excellent engineer, sysadmin, or analyst are necessary but wildly insufficient for management. Some of the best technical people become the worst managers. Some mediocre techs become exceptional leaders.

This guide won’t just tell you which certifications to get or how many years you need. We’re going to dig into whether management is actually right for you, what the job really involves, and the specific path to get there if you decide it’s what you want.

What IT Managers Actually Do (The Reality Check)

Before mapping the path, let’s be clear about the destination.

The Job Description vs. The Real Job

Job postings describe IT managers as people who “oversee technology strategy” and “align IT initiatives with business objectives.” That sounds important. Here’s what the day actually looks like:

You’ll spend most of your time on people problems. An engineer is underperforming. Two team members have a conflict. Someone wants a raise you can’t approve. A high performer is getting poached by another company. HR needs you to document why you’re putting someone on a performance improvement plan.

You’ll translate constantly. Executives want to know why the project is delayed. They don’t want technical explanations—they want business impact and solutions. Your team wants to know why leadership made a decision that seems technically stupid. You have to explain business constraints without undermining confidence in leadership.

You’ll attend meetings. Many meetings. Budget meetings, project status meetings, one-on-ones with direct reports, skip-level meetings with their reports, vendor meetings, cross-functional coordination meetings, leadership meetings about meetings.

You’ll make decisions with incomplete information. Should you hire for this role or wait for budget clarity? Is this vendor worth the cost? Should you approve that architecture change? You rarely have all the data you want, and waiting too long is itself a decision.

You’ll do less technical work. Much less. Some managers stay hands-on, but most find their technical skills gradually atrophying as management responsibilities consume available time. This is the tradeoff most people underestimate.

The Part Nobody Mentions

Management can be isolating. You can’t vent to your team the way you once vented with peers. You have information you can’t share—about budgets, about personnel decisions, about company direction. The relationships you had as a peer change when you become someone’s boss.

You’re also accountable for outcomes you don’t directly control. When your team misses a deadline, that’s your failure in leadership’s eyes, even if you weren’t the one writing code. When someone you hired turns out to be a bad fit, that’s on you.

Is this meant to scare you off? No. But if you’re only seeing management as “more money and more authority,” you’re missing significant parts of the picture.

Is Management Right for You? (The Honest Assessment)

Not everyone should become a manager. This isn’t gatekeeping—it’s acknowledging that management and individual contribution are different career tracks, and excellence in one doesn’t predict excellence in the other.

Signs Management Might Be Right for You

You find yourself naturally mentoring others. Not because it’s assigned, but because you genuinely enjoy helping people develop. You get satisfaction from someone else’s success that you contributed to.

You think in systems beyond technology. You’re curious about how teams function, why some projects succeed and others fail for non-technical reasons, how business decisions get made. You read about organizational psychology or management theory for fun (or at least interest).

You’re willing to give up hands-on work. Not just tolerate giving it up—genuinely accept that your contribution will shift from building things to enabling others to build things.

You can handle uncomfortable conversations. Telling someone their work isn’t meeting expectations. Saying no to reasonable requests because of budget constraints. Delivering news about decisions you disagree with but have to support.

You’re patient with ambiguity. Technical problems often have right answers. Management problems usually don’t. If you need clear solutions and objective metrics, management will frustrate you.

Signs You Should Stay Technical

You love the craft itself. If writing elegant code, designing bulletproof infrastructure, or solving complex security challenges is what energizes you, management will feel like exile from the work you actually enjoy.

Your best days are heads-down, focused work. Management is constant context-switching. If interruptions derail your productivity and satisfaction, the management lifestyle will drain you.

You prefer problems with solutions. Technical problems can be debugged, traced, and fixed. People problems are messier. Someone might not improve despite your best coaching. A team dynamic might never gel. Some situations have no good options.

You’d only do it for the money or title. If the actual work of management doesn’t appeal to you, the salary bump won’t compensate for doing a job you find frustrating or boring. (See our DevOps career guide for a technical track with strong growth potential.)

The Third Option: Technical Leadership

Individual Contributor (IC) tracks exist at many companies specifically for people who want advancement without management. Staff engineer, principal engineer, distinguished engineer—these roles offer increasing scope, influence, and compensation without direct reports.

If you want to shape technical direction, mentor informally, and stay close to the work, an IC track might fit better than management. This isn’t a consolation prize—it’s a legitimate path that some of the industry’s most influential engineers have chosen intentionally. (For more on IT specialization options, see our IT career paths guide.)

The Typical Path to IT Management

There’s no single route, but most IT managers follow a recognizable progression. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the journey typically takes 5-10 years from entry-level to management.

Phase 1: Build Technical Credibility (Years 1-4)

You need to be good at something technical before you can manage others doing it. This doesn’t mean you need to be the best engineer—but you need enough expertise that your team will respect your judgment.

Solid foundations to build on:

• System administration (see our help desk to sysadmin guide)
• Network engineering
• Security operations (our cybersecurity career guide covers this path)
• Software development
• Cloud engineering (explore the cloud computing career path)

During this phase, focus on being someone others come to for help. Volunteer for cross-team projects. Document your work so others can learn from it. Build a reputation as someone who ships things and unblocks problems.

Phase 2: Lead Without Title (Years 3-6)

The transition to management rarely happens overnight. Most future managers first demonstrate leadership ability without formal authority.

What this looks like:

• Leading project teams as a technical lead
• Mentoring junior team members
• Running meetings and facilitating decisions
• Representing your team in cross-functional discussions
• Taking ownership of initiatives beyond your immediate responsibilities

This phase is crucial because it gives you—and others—evidence of whether you’re suited for management. If leading projects energizes you and people respond well to your guidance, that’s useful signal. If it feels like a distraction from “real work,” that’s useful signal too.

Pro tip: Ask your manager for feedback specifically on your leadership potential. What do they see as strengths and gaps? What would they need to see before recommending you for a management role?

Phase 3: First Management Role (Years 5-8)

Your first management position is usually either:

• Promoted internally: Managing the team you were part of (common but challenging—former peers become direct reports)
• Hired externally: Managing a team at a new company (fresh start, but less context on people and systems)
• Team lead with reports: Some companies create hybrid roles where you manage 1-3 people while still doing technical work (a good transitional step)

This is the steepest learning curve in your career since you were entry-level. Everything changes. Your success metrics change. Your daily work changes. Your relationships change.

Most new managers underestimate how long it takes to adjust—expect 6-12 months before you feel competent, and longer before you feel confident.

Phase 4: Growing Scope (Years 7-12+)

Once you’ve managed a team successfully, the path opens to larger scope:

• Managing managers: Moving from leading ICs to leading other managers
• Department leadership: IT Director, VP of Engineering
• Executive roles: CIO, CTO, VP of IT

Each step involves less technical work and more organizational, strategic, and political work. Some people love this progression; others find their sweet spot managing a single team and stay there happily.

Skills That Actually Matter for IT Management

The Non-Negotiables

Communication

This is first for a reason. You’ll spend more time communicating than anything else—emails, meetings, presentations, one-on-ones, documentation. Technical brilliance means nothing if you can’t explain technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders, give clear feedback, or write a coherent project update.

Work on this actively. Take a writing course. Join Toastmasters. Ask for feedback on your presentations. The people who advance fastest in management are usually excellent communicators. (Our soft skills guide goes deeper on this.)

Emotional Intelligence

You need to read situations and people. When is someone struggling but not saying it? When is a conflict brewing between team members? When does your boss need you to disagree, and when do they need you to commit even if you have reservations?

This is partly innate but mostly developable. Pay attention to dynamics in meetings. Ask questions about how people are really doing and actually listen to the answers. Notice what’s not being said.

Delegation

This is harder than it sounds. You know you could do the task faster and better yourself. You have to let go anyway—both because you don’t have time to do everything and because your job is developing others, which requires giving them stretch opportunities even when they might fail.

Bad delegation: “Here’s a task. Do it exactly this way. Check in with me at every step.” Good delegation: “Here’s the outcome we need and why it matters. Here are the constraints. How would you approach this?”

Strategic Thinking

You need to connect daily work to larger goals. Why does this project matter? What should we say no to so we can focus on what matters most? Where should we be investing for the future?

This doesn’t mean you need an MBA. It means you need to understand how your department fits into the larger organization and how decisions in your area ripple outward.

The Frequently Underestimated

Hiring

Nothing affects team performance more than who’s on the team. Learning to evaluate candidates effectively—beyond just technical skills—is critical. You’re evaluating collaboration style, growth potential, culture fit, and red flags that don’t show up in coding exercises. (Our IT interview mistakes guide shows the other side of this equation.)

Giving Feedback

Most managers avoid difficult conversations, which means problems fester. The skill isn’t just being willing to have the conversation—it’s having it in a way that’s specific, actionable, and preserves the relationship. This takes practice. (For interview preparation on both sides, see our IT interview guide.)

Managing Up

Your relationship with your own manager affects what resources your team gets, how problems get escalated, and how your team’s work is perceived. Managing up doesn’t mean being political or sycophantic—it means understanding what your manager needs from you and providing it reliably.

Budgeting and Resource Planning

Eventually, you’ll be responsible for money. How much should we spend on tools? Can we afford this hire? How do we justify the budget increase we need? If numbers make you anxious, this is worth developing before you need it.

Certifications: What Actually Helps

Certifications aren’t required to become an IT manager, but certain ones can strengthen your candidacy—especially if you’re competing with candidates who have more management experience.

High-Value Certifications for IT Management

Certification	Best For	Investment	ROI Assessment
PMP (Project Management Professional)	Leading cross-functional projects	$2,500-4,000 + 35 hours training	High—widely recognized, demonstrates project delivery capability
ITIL 4 Foundation	IT operations and service management	$500-1,500	Medium-High—essential for operations-focused roles
CISM (Certified Information Security Manager)	Security management roles	$3,000-5,000 + 5 years experience required	High for security track—often required by government contractors
AWS/Azure/GCP Professional Certs	Cloud-focused teams	$1,000-3,000	Medium—shows you understand what your team is building

The Honest Take on Certifications

PMP is probably the most useful if you’re going to get one management-focused certification. It’s recognized across industries and teaches frameworks that genuinely help with running projects. According to PMI, PMP-certified professionals earn approximately 20% more than non-certified peers.

ITIL matters most in operations. If you’re managing help desk, infrastructure, or IT service teams, ITIL fluency is often expected. For development or security teams, it’s less relevant.

CISM is niche but valuable. If you’re on a security management track, CISM or CISSP demonstrate credibility. Otherwise, skip it.

Technical certifications show you understand the work. A cloud certification won’t teach you management, but it signals to your team that you understand the technical context of what they’re doing.

No certification compensates for poor leadership. Don’t expect a PMP to get you a management job if you haven’t demonstrated leadership ability. Certifications supplement experience; they don’t replace it. (For more on certification value, see our IT certifications guide.)

The Money: What IT Managers Actually Earn

Let’s talk numbers. Compensation varies significantly based on company size, industry, location, and scope of responsibility.

IT Manager Salary Ranges (2025-2026)

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According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual wage for computer and information systems managers was $171,200 in May 2024. Glassdoor reports an average of $128,649, with top earners reaching $210,000+.

Highest-Paying Industries

According to Glassdoor’s 2025 data, the top-paying industries for IT managers are:

1. Pharmaceutical & Biotechnology: $174,556 median total pay
2. Energy, Mining & Utilities: $158,511
3. Financial Services: $152,814
4. Agriculture: $147,225
5. Manufacturing: $146,166

The Comp vs. Headache Calculation

Here’s what nobody talks about: management often pays only marginally more than senior technical roles, especially at larger companies with strong IC tracks.

A Staff Engineer at a well-paying tech company might earn $250,000+. An IT Manager at the same company might earn $180,000-220,000. When you factor in the stress, responsibility, and loss of technical work, the financial case for management isn’t as clear-cut as it might seem.

Do the math for your specific situation. Management is the right move when you want the work, not just when it pays slightly more than what you’re doing now.

Building Your Path: Practical Action Items

If You’re 1-3 Years Into Your Career

Focus on technical excellence. You need credibility before leadership opportunities open. Be the person others come to for help. (Start with our Linux command line guide to strengthen fundamental skills.)

Volunteer for visible projects. Cross-functional work, documentation initiatives, anything that exposes you to how the broader organization works.

Build relationships beyond your team. Get to know people in other departments. Understanding how different parts of the business work will serve you when you need to collaborate or communicate across boundaries. Building a home lab can also demonstrate initiative and technical depth.

If You’re 3-6 Years In and Eyeing Management

Ask for leadership opportunities explicitly. Tell your manager you’re interested in a management track. Ask what they’d need to see from you to recommend you for that path.

Lead a project or initiative end-to-end. Not just the technical implementation—the planning, stakeholder communication, and delivery. This is the clearest evidence of management readiness.

Get a mentor who’s a manager. Ask them about the realities of the job. Shadow them if possible. Understand what you’re signing up for.

Consider PMP or ITIL certification if you have bandwidth. Not essential, but these can fill gaps in project management and service management knowledge.

If You’re Ready to Make the Jump

Have the conversation with your current manager. Are there management opportunities in your organization? What’s the timeline? If there’s no path internally, you have useful information.

Update your resume to highlight leadership. Projects you led. People you mentored. Initiatives you drove. Outcomes from collaboration, not just technical accomplishments. (See our LinkedIn optimization guide for positioning tips.)

Prepare for interview questions you haven’t faced before. Management interviews include questions like: “Tell me about a time you had to deliver difficult feedback.” “How do you handle conflict between team members?” “What’s your approach to prioritization?” Practice answering these with specific examples.

Be willing to take a lateral move. Your first management role might not come with a big pay increase. It might be a smaller team than you’d like. The goal is getting management experience on your resume so future opportunities open.

Common Mistakes New IT Managers Make

Learning from others’ failures is faster than making all of them yourself.

Mistake 1: Still Doing IC Work

You were good at the technical work. It’s tempting to keep doing it. But every hour you spend writing code is an hour you’re not spending on the work only a manager can do: coaching, planning, clearing obstacles, communicating with stakeholders.

The fix: Schedule management work first. One-on-ones, planning sessions, stakeholder meetings—these go on the calendar before anything else. Technical work fills whatever time remains.

Mistake 2: Being Everyone’s Friend

Especially if you were promoted from within, maintaining friendships while becoming someone’s boss is difficult. You’ll need to have hard conversations, make unpopular decisions, and hold people accountable.

The fix: Be friendly, but accept that the relationship changes. Your job is to help people succeed, which sometimes means telling them things they don’t want to hear.

Mistake 3: Avoiding Conflict

When two team members disagree, it’s tempting to hope they’ll work it out. When someone’s underperforming, it’s easier to compensate than to address it. These avoidances always backfire.

The fix: Address issues early and directly. A difficult conversation today prevents a much worse situation in three months.

Mistake 4: Not Delegating Enough (or Delegating Poorly)

Micromanagement kills morale and burns you out. But delegation without support sets people up to fail.

The fix: Delegate the outcome, not just the task. Explain why it matters. Agree on check-in points. Provide resources and support. Then step back.

Mistake 5: Ignoring Your Own Development

So busy developing others that you stop developing yourself. Management skills aren’t static—they need ongoing investment.

The fix: Read books on management (start with “The Manager’s Path” by Camille Fournier). Find a peer group of other managers. Get coaching. Ask for feedback regularly.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a degree to become an IT manager?

Not necessarily. The BLS notes that most IT managers have at least a bachelor’s degree, but experience and demonstrated leadership matter more at many companies. An MBA can help for executive roles but is rarely required for first-line management. What you can’t skip is credible technical experience and evidence of leadership ability.

How long does it take to become an IT manager?

Typical timeline is 5-10 years from entry-level to first management role. This varies significantly—some people move faster in high-growth companies or startups, while others take longer in more hierarchical organizations. The path isn’t purely time-based; it depends on opportunities, demonstrated readiness, and organizational need.

Is it worth going into IT management?

It depends entirely on what you want from your career. If you genuinely enjoy developing others, navigating organizational dynamics, and enabling team success, management can be deeply rewarding. If you love technical work and would mainly be doing management for the title or salary, you’ll likely be unhappy. There’s no objectively better path—only the right path for you.

Can I go back to technical work if I don’t like management?

Yes, though it gets harder the longer you’re away from hands-on work. Many people try management, realize it’s not for them, and return to IC roles. This is more accepted in tech than in many industries. The challenge is that technical skills atrophy without use, so returning after 5+ years in pure management means significant catching up.

What’s the difference between IT Manager and IT Director?

IT Managers typically manage individual contributors—engineers, analysts, support specialists. IT Directors manage managers and/or lead departments with broader scope. Directors have more strategic responsibility, larger budgets, and more organizational influence. The Director role is usually 2-5 years beyond first-line management.

Should I get PMP before applying for management roles?

It’s helpful but not essential. PMP demonstrates project management competency and can differentiate you from candidates with similar experience. However, demonstrated leadership ability and management potential matter more than certifications. If you have time and budget, PMP is a reasonable investment; if not, focus on getting leadership experience and having specific examples to discuss in interviews.

The Bottom Line

Becoming an IT manager isn’t about climbing a ladder—it’s about changing what you do entirely. The path requires technical credibility, demonstrated leadership ability, continuous skill development, and a genuine interest in enabling others’ success.

The job outlook is strong: the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 15% employment growth for computer and information systems managers from 2024 to 2034—much faster than average. About 55,600 openings are projected annually.

But good job outlook shouldn’t be your primary motivation. The question isn’t “Can I become an IT manager?” Most competent technical people could get there eventually. The question is “Do I actually want to do the work of management?”

If the answer is yes—if you find yourself energized by coaching, by facilitating, by enabling your team to succeed—then this is a path worth pursuing. Build your technical credibility, seek leadership opportunities, develop the skills that matter, and make the jump when you’re ready.

If you’re not sure, that’s okay too. Find ways to test management responsibilities in your current role. Lead a project. Mentor someone junior. See how it feels. The best time to figure out you don’t want management is before you’re in a management role.

The organizations that run well need excellent managers. If that’s you, the opportunity is there.

For more on career progression, explore our career development resources, IT interview preparation guides, and cybersecurity career opportunities.