The Average Salary of Pharmaceutical Marketers

Pharmaceutical marketers are marketing managers who are responsible for assessing the market demand for goods and services provided by the pharmaceutical industry. These marketing professionals devise plans with regard to pricing in order to maximize their firm's profits while also providing competition with other pharmaceutical companies.

Marketing managers in the United States, irrespective of industry or sector, earned an average of $120,070 a year in 2009, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The median income was slightly lower at $110,030. The top 25 percent earned $149,390 a year or more, while the bottom 25 percent made less than $78,340 a year. An estimated 169,330 people were employed as marketing managers in the United States.

Within the pharmaceutical industry, marketing managers earned higher salaries than marketing managers as a whole, with average wages of $136,840 a year in 2009, according to the BLS. This was among the highest average salaries for management positions in the pharmaceutical sector, with only the incomes of CEOs, general managers, sales managers, health service managers and natural science managers being higher.

A bachelor's degree is almost always required for a role in marketing. A bachelor's degree in marketing will typically cover elements such as economics, law, finance, accounting and business strategy. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, 84 percent of marketing managers had a bachelor's degree, 4 percent had a high school diploma and another 4 percent had attended college, but had no degree. Entry into the marketing field is assisted by first competing an internship. Many of the larger firms offer management trainee programs.

Marketing experience can lead to advancement to the senior ranks of a corporation, such as that of chief executive officer, because the high-level of communication skill required from marketing managers is a desired asset. The U.S. Department of Labor estimated that 59,700 positions for marketing managers would open from 2008 to 2018, with a growth of 7 to 13 percent. However, this estimate was for marketing managers as a whole and does not include those who are employed with the pharmaceutical industry.