MBA careers
How To Become An Operations Manager
Jobs nationally
3,503,020
$50,090 to $253,390 across them
Ranked MBAs in this field
14
Leadership concentration
The broadest destination on this list, and the one the general MBA is built for: BLS describes work too diverse to classify into one area of management. That is also why no concentration owns it, and why the general track is the honest recommendation here.
What General and Operations Managers Do
The Occupational Outlook Handbook describes the work this way: “Top executives plan strategies and policies to ensure that an organization meets its goals.” Within that group, it is more specific: “General and operations managers oversee activities that are too diverse to be classified into one area of management or administration.” That is the occupation BLS surveys for the pay figures on this page, so the job description and the wage belong to the same definition. The Handbook page is the source, read on September 22, 2026.
How To Become An Operations Manager
BLS sums the route up in one sentence: “Top executives typically need at least a bachelor's degree and considerable work experience to enter the occupation.”
There is no single door into this one. BLS defines the occupation by what will not fit elsewhere, which is why the general MBA rather than any concentration is what most people bring to it, and why the title means something different in every company.
What this site can add to that is the price of the degree and what its graduates earned. Across the 14 ranked online MBAs reporting a leadership concentration, whole-program tuition has a median of $33,789, and their graduates' median earnings a year after finishing were $77,442. The BLS median for general and operations managers is $105,770, $24,858 above the $80,912 median a year out of these programs, which is the distance experience covers rather than the degree.
What General and Operations Managers Earn
The May 2025 wage survey reports 3,503,020 jobs nationally, with these figures:
| Percentile | Annual pay | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| 10th | $50,090 | Lowest tenth of the occupation |
| 25th | $72,320 | Lower quarter |
| Median | $105,770 | Midpoint, half earn more |
| 75th | $167,280 | Upper quarter |
| 90th | $253,390 | Highest tenth |
This is the largest occupation on the site by a distance, 3.5 million jobs, and the spread is what that size hides: $50,090 at the 10th percentile and $253,390 at the 90th are not the same job in any meaningful sense. A second occupation sits beside this one in the survey: chief executives, median $213,990 across 204,350 jobs. The two are counted separately and one job title in a company may cover either. MBA salaries by occupation sets all thirteen side by side, with what graduates of the ranked programs earned.
Online MBA Programs For Operations Managers
Leadership and supply chain both bear on it, but an MBA with no concentration at all is the honest default here, and the ranking is built to be read that way. Full profiles, prices and sources for each of these are on the concentration page; the score describes the whole MBA, because neither federal earnings nor AACSB tuition is reported for a single concentration.
| Program | Tuition | Graduate earnings | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Southeastern Oklahoma State University, Oklahoma | $11,730 | $76,648 | 35th |
| Lamar University, Texas | $13,153 | $77,018 | 36th |
| Bryant University, Rhode Island | $23,805 | $85,890 | 43rd |
| University of South Dakota, South Dakota | $16,980 | $76,293 | 56th |
| University of West Florida, Florida | $15,064 | $74,044 | 65th |
All 14 ranked online MBAs in Leadership · Online MBA in Supply Chain Management
Common Questions About Becoming An Operations Manager
Do you need an MBA to become an operations manager?
How much do general and operations managers make?
Which online MBA concentration is best for general and operations managers?
Is the job growing?
Other Careers An MBA Leads To
Sources For This Operations Manager Page
- Accreditation, online MBA offerings, concentrations and tuition: AACSB's list of accredited schools, retrieved September 21, 2026. Program details on that list are reported to AACSB by each school.
- Graduate earnings and debt: U.S. Department of Education, College Scorecard, field-of-study file (Most-Recent-Cohorts-Field-of-Study_06102026.zip), business master's in CIP 52.01 and 52.02.
- Institution identifiers: IPEDS, used to match each AACSB school to its federal records.
- Wages: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025.