What Does an Environmental Health and Safety Manager Do?
Most people reach safety management after years as a specialist or engineer. Environmental health and safety managers run the programs, staff and budget that keep people unhurt at plants, labs and other workplaces, and they make sure a site's chemical, waste and environmental permits stay in order. Regulators, neighbors and insurers all watch the results.
Also known as: Regulatory Environmental Compliance Manager, Environmental Safety Manager
Environmental Health and Safety Manager Duties and Responsibilities
The primary responsibilities of an environmental health and safety manager include:
- Direct the EHS department's staff, budget and programs across labs, shops and offices.
- Set yearly safety and environmental goals and report progress to senior leaders.
- Sign the permit applications and compliance certifications that regulators require from the organization.
- Lead investigations of serious injuries, spills and near misses and see corrective actions through.
- Host OSHA, EPA and fire marshal inspections and negotiate settlements when citations follow.
- Audit departments against written safety programs and track findings until they close.
- Choose EHS software for incident reporting, training records and chemical inventory.
- Brief executives on new regulations and what they will cost to meet.
- Chair safety committees and give frontline staff a voice in fixing hazards.
- Hire, coach and evaluate EHS specialists, technicians and compliance staff.
Required Skills and Qualifications
To succeed as an environmental health and safety manager, you will need the following skills and qualifications:
- Certified Safety Professional (CSP) or a similar credential
- OSHA, EPA and state regulatory knowledge
- Managing people and a department budget
- Incident investigation and root cause analysis
- EHS management systems and ISO standards
- Persuading leaders to fund safety work
- Clear writing for policies and regulators
- Data skills for injury and compliance metrics
Education and Training
Entry to EHS management without a degree might be possible in some plants, but candidates with a bachelor's in occupational safety, environmental science or engineering will have an edge over other applicants. BLS lists a bachelor's as typical for this broad management group. Many managers also hold the CSP. Most reach the post after several years as an EHS specialist or engineer.
Salary and Job Outlook
Typical pay: varies widely for this role, and BLS does not publish pay for it separately. In the wider BLS group it belongs to (Managers, All Other), the middle half of earners made $102,880 to $186,300 a year, and the median was $141,900.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, Managers, All Other.
BLS projects employment of managers not listed elsewhere, the catch-all group this job falls in, to grow about 5 percent from 2025 to 2035. That group is huge, with about 100,900 openings a year, so the figures say more about managers in general than about EHS work. Demand for EHS leaders tends to follow new regulations, insurance pressure and growth in labs and manufacturing.
Outlook source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Projections, 2025 to 2035, Managers, all other.