Average Salary

• In May 2010, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics conducted its most recent analysis of U.S. employment trends. It classified pharmacy operations managers alongside other pharmacists and reported that the mean annual pay for the profession was $109,380. Top earners -- those within the highest 10 percent -- received over $138,620 per annum, while their contemporaries in the bottom 10 percent earned less than $82,090. At the time of publication, wage comparison website Indeed.com put the average yearly pay for a pharmacy manager at $104,000.
  
  

Salary by Industry

• The majority of pharmacists work in what the bureau classifies as health and personal-care stores -- pharmacies, essentially. It gave the mean annual salary for this sector of the industry as $111,000. In other areas of the retail sector, pharmacy operations managers working within grocery stores received a mean of $107,530, while those employed by department stores were listed at $106,740. Individuals working within general medical and surgical hospitals earned a mean yearly wage of $108,430, while those employed in the offices of physicians received $113,450.
  
  

Salary by Location

• The bureau's survey also revealed how salary levels for pharmacists vary between states. It listed Maine as the state in which a practitioner was likely to receive the highest wage, a mean of $121,470. California and Alaska completed the top three locations with means of $118,810 and $118,000, respectively. Alaska and Vermont had almost identical pay rates -- $117,930 and $117,900 -- while Indiana was listed at $106,080.
  
  

Outlook

• The bureau expects the job market for pharmacists, such as pharmacy operations managers, to grow by around 17 percent over the decade from 2008 to 2018. This exceeds the predicted growth for the country as a whole, put at somewhere between 7 and 13 percent for the same period. An aging population requiring more prescription medications, the ongoing development of new drugs, and the increased role of pharmacists in patient care are cited as primary reasons for this growth. As such, wage levels for the role should remain very competitive.