Sustainability Manager jobs: skills, pay and how to get hired

What a sustainability manager does

A sustainability manager, often called an ESG manager, helps a company measure and reduce its effect on the climate, nature and people, and report it truthfully. The work runs from data to decisions: an inventory of greenhouse gas emissions, an assessment of which topics matter most, targets and plans to cut emissions, checks on suppliers, and a yearly report that an auditor can review.

The role sits between several others. The supply chain manager and the buyer control most of the emissions and risks that lie with suppliers; the compliance officer makes sure the firm meets its duties; finance owns the report it sits next to. German ads say Nachhaltigkeitsmanager or Referent Nachhaltigkeit. The steps from ESG analyst to chief sustainability officer are in the career paths of this role.

Reporting rules differ by place, and each is named with its place. In the EU the CSRD sets who must report and the ESRS, the European Sustainability Reporting Standards, set what they report; the EU has postponed later waves and is narrowing the scope, so read the current rules. The ISSB's global standards IFRS S1 and IFRS S2 are being taken up by many countries, and the global GRI Standards are widely used for voluntary reports. In the US, the SEC adopted climate disclosure rules for listed companies in March 2024, paused them while courts reviewed them, and in March 2025 voted to stop defending them in court. This page describes the job and 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: ESG reportingCollect, check and write the sustainability report to the standard that applies, ready for an auditor to review. to the standard that applies, carbon accountingMeasure the company's greenhouse gas emissions across its own sites, its energy and its value chain. across the value chain, and a strategyTurn environmental and social goals into plans, owners and measures the business actually runs. the business can carry out. Supplier due diligenceFind, rate and follow up human rights and environmental risks at suppliers, with buying and legal., ESG ratingsAnswer rating questionnaires accurately and know what the main ratings measure and miss. and life cycle assessmentRead and commission product life cycle studies and know the choices that drive their results. come next, with supply chainUnderstand how goods are bought, made and moved, where most emissions and risks sit., buyingWork with buyers on supplier questionnaires, contract clauses and purchasing criteria. and complianceKeep the reporting and due diligence duties of each country in view, with legal and compliance. knowledge to work with the teams that own the data, data analysisFind gaps and errors in energy, travel, purchase and HR data before they reach the report. to check it, and risk managementRate climate and social risks with the methods the risk team already uses. to rate climate and social risks.

The tools are named side by side and none is a must everywhere: reporting tools such as Workiva, carbon accounting tools such as Persefoni or Watershed, life cycle tools such as SimaPro, and ExcelBuild clear, checked calculations for emissions and indicators when no tool covers them yet. and Power BIBuild dashboards that show progress against targets for management and the sites. for data and dashboards. Running projectsRun reporting cycles and reduction projects across many teams to a fixed date., winning supportWin the support of finance, operations, buying and the board for goals none of them owns alone. and plain writingExplain targets, results and limits in plain words, without claims the data cannot carry. are in nearly every ad, EnglishThe language of most reporting standards, ratings and international teams. in most and GermanAsked for in most German ads, where suppliers, works councils and authorities work in 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 reporting year, step by step

1. Materiality: decide with the business and its stakeholders which topics matter most, both for the company's results and for people and the environment.
2. Data: collect energy, travel, purchasing, waste and people data from the teams that own it, with owners and deadlines.
3. Emissions: calculate the inventory, Scope 1, 2 and 3, and check it against last year.
4. Plans: follow progress against targets and the projects behind them, and agree changes where the business is off track.
5. Report: write the report, prepare the evidence for the auditor and answer the rating questionnaires from the same data.

Around the yearly cycle come the steady tasks: supplier assessments, questions from customers and investors, training for the business, and checks that every green claim the company makes can be proved. A good sustainability manager is trusted by finance for accurate numbers and by the business for practical plans.

Your CV for a sustainability manager job

A sustainability manager's CV is read twice: by hiring software that matches the ad's words, and by a head of sustainability who wants to see which reports, inventories and plans you delivered and what changed because of them. Give both: the keywords and the evidence.

Use the keywords the ads use

• Name the work as the ad does: "ESG reporting", "carbon accounting", "Scope 3", "double materiality", "supplier due diligence", and the tools you used. The skills table above shows which keywords the ads use most.
• Say which reporting standards and which countries, so a reader sees what you already know.
• Show what moved: emissions measured for the first time, a target agreed, suppliers assessed, a report that passed review.
• Name a course or certificate in progress, such as one on a reporting standard, as in progress with the month you expect to finish.

Prove each skill

A sustainability line proves itself with data that is now complete or a decision that changed: a first full inventory, a supplier programme running, a report signed off by the auditor.

Keep confidential figures out: no supplier names or unpublished data without permission.

How we read our data

• The jobs: the sustainability manager jobs in our job search (sustainability and ESG managers and analysts and the German titles Nachhaltigkeitsmanager and Referent Nachhaltigkeit), matched by their titles the way the search matches them; environmental engineer and compliance jobs are counted elsewhere. 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 sustainability manager role