Agriculture and Garden Careers | Nursery / Greenhouse Manager

Nursery / Greenhouse Manager

Career Area: Agriculture, Horticulture, & the Outdoors

Occupation Group: Agriculture Managers

Salary

Percentile wages tell how much a certain percentage of an overall population in a geographic area or within a given industry or field makes. The percentile wage estimate is the value of a wage below which a certain percent of workers fall.

An example would be the 25th percentile, 25 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 75 percent earn more than the estimated wage value. At the 75th percentile, 75 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 25 percent earn more than the estimated wage value.

A typical Nursery / Greenhouse Manager earns the following wages (national and state):

State

The average salary in North Carolina for those pursuing this career is $48,722

*The salaries depicted here are representative of the range of salaries posted in job listings over the past year. Living wage in North Carolina is $30,000.

National

The average salary in the United States for those pursuing this career is $51,645

*The salaries depicted here are representative of the range of salaries posted in job listings over the past year. Living wage in North Carolina is $30,000.

What Does a Professional in this Career Do?

Manages agricultural workers who propagate, cultivate and harvest plants, primarily flowers, trees, shrubs and sod, and other crops such as mushrooms. Gathers data to monitor greenhouse and nursery growing conditions and yields.

Employment Trends

The job demand and job growth statistics shown here were derived from job posts over the past year. Expected job growth projections are extrapolated from year-over-year job post listing history.

Job demand and job growth is expected at the following rates:

LocationGrowth
North Carolina22-0.3%
Nationwide694-0.9%

Skills

A professional in this position typically utilizes the following skills in the course of everyday work in this exciting and challenging field:

Baseline Skills

The following are baseline skills every Nursery / Greenhouse Manager is expected to have in order to experience success in this field:

  • Communication Skills: The ability to convey information to another effectively and efficiently.
  • Planning: Working experience with the process of thinking about and organizing the activities required to achieve desired goals.
  • Teamwork / Collaboration: Experience working in collaborative efforts with a team to achieve a common goal or to complete a task in the most effective and efficient way.
  • Organizational Skills: Experience with a systematic process of structuring, integrating, co-ordinating task goals, and activities to resources in order to attain objectives.
  • Microsoft Excel: Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet developed by Microsoft for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications.

Specialized Skills

These skills are specific to working in this career:

  • Scheduling: Working experience making schedules, which are basic time-management tools, consisting of a list of times at which possible tasks, events, or actions are intended to take place withing an organization.
  • Budgeting: Experience planning how the financial resources of a business or department are to be allocated during the next business period.
  • Staff Management: Working experience with the management of subordinates in an organization.
  • Project Management: Project management is the discipline of initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing the work of a team to achieve specific goals and meet specific success criteria.
  • Customer Service: Working experience with the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase.

Distinguishing Skills

Any Nursery / Greenhouse Manager that possesses the following skills will stand out against the competition:

  • Agronomy: Agronomy is the science and technology of producing and using plants for food, fuel, fiber, and land reclamation.
  • Farm Management: farm management is the science (and art) of optimizing the use of resources in the farm component of farm-households, i.e., in systems of Order Level 10 (see Figure 1.2), and of achieving the optimal functioning of these systems in relation to household-specified objectives;
  • Landscape Design: Landscape design is an independent profession and a design and art tradition, practised by landscape designers, combining nature and culture.

Salary Boosting Skills

A professional who wishes to excel in this career path may consider developing the following highly valued skills:

  • Crop Production: A crop is a plant or animal product that can be grown and harvested extensively for profit or subsistence. Crop may refer either to the harvested parts or to the harvest in a more refined state.

Experience

This position typically requires the following level of experience. The numbers presented in the pie charts below were derived from actual job posts over the past year. Not all job postings list experience requirements.

Experience Required%
0 to 2 years28%
3 to 5 years54%
6 to 8 years13%

Many of the programs offered through NC State are designed for working professionals who need additional credentials to enhance existing work experience.

Students who do not have the expected level of experience may wish to look into internship and employment opportunities.

Common Job Titles

It is possible to find work in this field in positions commonly listed as the following job titles:

  • Nursery Manager
  • Greenhouse Manager
  • Horticulture Manager
  • Department Manager - Nursery
  • Deloitte Greenhouse Innovation Manager

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