Investor Relations Manager jobs: skills, pay and how to get hired

What an investor relations manager does

An investor relations manager, often called the IR manager, explains a listed company to the capital market and tells the company what the market thinks. The year runs around the results: the release, the presentation and the call each quarter or half year, then meetings and roadshows with investors, conferences, the general meeting and, now and then, a capital markets day. In between come the questions of analysts and shareholders, the website, and a close watch on the share price and who holds the shares.

The role sits between three others. The communications manager speaks to the media and the public, and the two agree every word that moves the share price. The FP&A manager and the controller supply the figures and the outlook IR presents; many IR managers come from finance, such as financial analysis, or from equity research. The steps from investor relations analyst to VP of investor relations are in the career paths of this role.

The disclosure rules are set by each market, and each country's section names its own: the EU Market Abuse Regulation for inside information in the EU, Regulation FD of the SEC against selective disclosure in the US, the UK's own market abuse rules and the FCA's disclosure rules in the UK, the SIX rules in Switzerland and SEBI's rules in India. This page describes the work; it is not legal advice.

The skills the ads ask for

We read a sample of the ads every day and count the skills they name. On a computer, hover a skill in the text to see its share; on a phone, the table has the same figures.

The core leads: investor relationsRun the dialogue with shareholders and analysts: meetings, results, questions and what the market thinks. work itself, capital marketsKnow how shares and bonds are traded and valued, and who the investors and analysts are. knowledge, and the resultsPrepare the results release, the presentation and the call with finance, legal and the board. each quarter or half year, built on financial reportingRead the accounts and explain every main figure and its change to someone outside the company. you can explain line by line. Disclosure rulesKnow when information must be published, how and to whom, and keep insider lists and quiet periods. decide what can be said, when and to whom, and valuationUnderstand how analysts value the company and its peers, and what moves their numbers. and analysts' modelsFollow and check analysts' models and keep the company's own consensus view. show how the market reads the company.

The tools are named side by side and none is a must everywhere: market data platforms such as Bloomberg, FactSet, S&P Capital IQ or LSEG Workspace for prices, peers and estimates, shareholder dataUse a market data platform to follow the share price, peers, holders and analysts' estimates. from these or from specialists, PowerPointBuild clear slides for results, roadshows and capital markets days. for presentations and ExcelKeep consensus tables, peer comparisons and shareholder data checked and current. for the consensus table. PresentingBuild and give investor presentations that tell the company's story with the right figures., answering hard questionsAnswer hard questions from investors clearly, without saying more than the company has published., aligning the board and financeKeep the board, finance, legal and the business aligned on what the company says. and work with the press teamWork with the press team so the market and the media hear the same story at the same time. are in most ads; data analysisRead the shareholder register and trading data to see who buys, who sells and why. of the register helps in larger companies. EnglishThe language of the capital markets; most results and investor meetings are in English. is in nearly every ad, GermanAsked for in most German ads, where the general meeting and many retail investors speak German. in German-speaking countries.

Where the jobs are, country by country

Each country below has its own figures: which cities have the most jobs in our list, whether the number is going up or down, how often ads offer remote or hybrid work, the titles used in the country, and pay ranges from published research, in the local currency.

A results season, step by step

1. Before the quiet period: collect analysts' estimates into a consensus, prepare the questions investors will ask, and agree the messages with the CFO.
2. Quiet period: in the weeks before results the company stops meeting investors on its figures; IR plans the release, the slides and the script.
3. Results day: publish at the agreed time to everyone at once, run the call, and note every question and how it was answered.
4. Roadshow: meet investors in the days after, in person or online, and report what they said to the board.
5. Between seasons: update the website and the equity story, follow the shareholder register and plan the next conferences and the general meeting.

Around the seasons come the events: a deal, a profit warning, a new CEO, an activist investor or a capital raise, each with its own disclosure steps. A good IR manager is trusted by investors for straight answers and by the board for knowing what the market will ask next.

Your CV for an investor relations manager job

An investor relations manager's CV is read by hiring software that matches the ad's words, and then by a head of IR or a CFO who wants to know which results you ran, which investors you met and which events you handled. Give both: the keywords and the evidence.

Use the keywords the ads use

• Name the work as the ad does: "investor relations", "earnings releases", "roadshows", "capital markets day", "consensus", "ad hoc disclosure", and the platforms you used. The skills table above shows which keywords the ads use most.
• Say what kind of company: its index or market, its sector, and its shareholders, such as "a mid-cap industrial company with many international funds".
• Show results the way IR is judged: analysts covering the company, meetings held, the quality of investor feedback, events handled without a disclosure problem.
• Name an IR certificate or a CFA in progress as in progress with the month you expect it.

Prove each skill

An IR line proves itself with an event you ran and its effect on the market's view: a smooth results day, a new analyst, a capital markets day that changed the questions investors ask.

Keep what is not public out: no figures, targets or investor names the company has not published.

How we read our data

• The jobs: the investor relations manager jobs in our job search (investor relations managers, officers and analysts, IR managers, and the German titles Investor Relations Manager and Referent Investor Relations), matched by their titles the way the search matches them; communications manager jobs are counted on their own page. Our list is not the whole market, so we give shares and rankings, never counts.
• The skills: every day we read a sample of these ads and count the skills in them with a fixed word list. Only the counts are kept, never the text of an ad.
• Pay: from published salary research, each source named with its date, as a range from entry level to senior. Our ads are not used for it.
• Dates: every figure is worked out again each day and shows the day it was worked out.

More on the investor relations manager role