In film and television production, you work as the location manager — scouting locations, securing permissions and permits, managing on-location operations, and the work behind getting productions filmed in real-world settings.
Days are a mix of location scouting, owner negotiations, and steady production coordination — driving the territory to scout potential locations, working with property owners on permissions and rates, securing city or municipal permits, supporting director-and-cinematographer location decisions, managing on-location operations during shoot days. Locations secured on budget, owner relationships, and shoot-day execution tend to be the visible measures.
The hardest part is often the variable-conditions dimension — location managers work outdoors across all conditions, navigate property-owner expectations that sometimes shift during shoots, and absorb the live operational pressure of production. Variance across employers is wide: major studio productions run with significant production infrastructure; independent productions run leaner; commercial and corporate-video productions run shorter cycles.
Strong location managers tend to carry deep film-industry knowledge, comfort with property-owner negotiations, and the calm composure that live-production work requires. Production-industry experience, growing location relationships, and union (Teamsters Local 399 or DGA) memberships anchor advancement. The trade-off is the freelance project-based employment of much production work and the long hours that shoot days involve.
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Roles like this one sit within a broader occupational category. The numbers below reflect that full landscape — helpful for context, but your specific experience will depend on level, specialty, and where you work.
Roles with similar work and overlapping career paths
View all Personal Care roles →In film and television production, you work as the location manager — scouting locations, securing permissions and permits, managing on-location operations, and the work behind getting productions filmed in real-world settings.
Median pay for a Location Manager is about $77K nationally, with the field ranging roughly from $46K to $132K depending on experience, employer, and metro (BLS).
Core skills for this role include Service Orientation, Social Perceptiveness, Active Listening, Reading Comprehension, and Time Management.
Most people in this role hold a postsecondary certificate.
Employment in this field is projected to grow about 4.1% through 2034, with roughly 13,120 people working in it today (BLS).
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