Your LinkedIn feed is lying to you. One week it’s layoffs. The next, everyone’s celebrating new AI PM roles. The data tells a far more specific story and where you sit on the map changes everything.
Last I checked, top 3 sources of audience on Productify is US (>25%), India (25%) and EU (10%).. so that is more than 60% of the audience reading this newsletter.
Given how critical the job market is these days, I’ve spent time pulling together the best available data on Product Management hiring across these three markets: US, Europe, and India for 2025. As 2025 trends would help you a lot to plan H1 of 2026.
What came back isn’t a single narrative. It’s three separate job markets, each operating under different rules, different pressures, and different opportunities.
Here are the contents for today’s newsletter:
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Where PM Jobs Are Actually Growing
Let’s start with the headline. Over the last 12 months, PM hiring in the US is modestly up and growing currently at 7.5% MoM growth rate. Europe has cooled but held stable comparing to last year. India? India is on a different planet entirely with 42% YoY growth.
United States: Slow Recovery, High Variance
The US PM market is recovering but it’s not clean. LinkedIn’s global PM reports show worldwide PM jobs up 5.1% in June 2025 after a 4.6% drop in May. October saw a 7.1% jump, followed by a 1.1% gain in November. The US followed the same pattern: contraction early in 2025, then mid-single-digit monthly growth later in the year, with November showing listings up 7.5% month-on-month.
Here’s what the level breakdown reveals:
Associate PMs, Senior PMs, and Leadership roles all grew in November. The “plain PM” middle i.e the generic Product Manager title, dipped slightly. The US is recovering unevenly. Your experience depends almost entirely on your level, specialization, and how flexible you are on location.
Europe: The Volume Looks Stable
Globally, over 2.6 million people list “Product Manager” as their title. Worldwide open PM roles have fluctuated between 20–26k, landing around 23k in April 2025. In the EEA specifically: roughly 4,200 open PM roles, down only 0.7% versus six months ago — but down 17% year-on-year. The UK sits at about 1,200 open roles, down 8% over six months and 18% year-on-year.
“The job counts look flat. But PMs laid off in 2022–2024 were more than twice as likely to be let go as engineers. That candidate pool didn’t disappear. It’s all competing for the same 4,200 roles.”
India: Do not go for the early-stage roles
The data here is employer-side, not survey data built on 110+ actual hiring events. PM hiring up 42% year-on-year for January through August 2025. That’s not a trend. That’s a structural shift. But the growth is concentrated: startups cut PM hiring sharply, while mid-size firms and MNCs drove virtually the entire surge. If you’re chasing early-stage startups in India right now, you’re swimming against the current.
Which Seniority Bands Are Winning?
Every region is telling you the same thing with slightly different accents: senior experience is the safe bet. Entry-level is the riskiest position in every market.
India: Senior PM roles grew 87% while junior PM roles grew 16%. That 5x gap isn't a market preference — it's a market verdict. Companies want PMs who can own complex, cross-functional products. Leadership roles at ₹75 LPA and above, senior roles at ₹40 LPA and above.
US: Leadership roles (Director/VP/CPO) show persistent growth even in months where total PM listings fall. Senior PM roles repeatedly show positive growth. Mid-level “Product Manager” titles occasionally dip. Associate PM roles are the most volatile — first to get cut, last to come back.
EU: About 72% of PM listings are mid-level "Product Manager", 16% Senior PM, with entry-level remaining structurally scarce. In the UK, mid-level and leadership listings fell double-digits over six months — while senior PM roles actually grew. Same pattern as the US: senior IC is the safe harbour.
Remote, Hybrid, On-Site: Who’s Actually Winning?
Surprise: Europe is quietly the most progressive PM market for remote work.
Remote PM roles in the EEA have grown rapidly and now account for roughly a quarter to a third of all PM listings in the region. If you’re a PM in Europe, the quantity of roles may be down — but the geographic optionality is quietly opening up.
The US is a different story. A dataset of 592 AI PM job postings shows that only about 7% of AI PM roles are fully remote. The rest are clustered in California, New York, Washington, Texas, and Massachusetts. AI PM in the US is a hub game.
The AI PM Market: Who’s Hiring, Where, and at What Pay?
This is the fastest-growing segment of the PM market — and the most misunderstood.
Between January 2024 and October 2025, over 12,000 people globally moved into AI PM roles across a dataset of more than 18,000 professionals with AI PM titles. Roughly twice as many people moved into AI PM roles in 2025 as the year before. The US leads, with India and the UK among the top countries.
70% of AI PM roles are mid-level. Technology companies account for more than half of all postings, with financial services and IT services also heavily represented. About half of AI PM jobs are at companies with over 1,000 employees.
On skills: just over half of AI PM roles explicitly require a degree — Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics, Economics, Analytics. The most common skills are product management and cross-functional collaboration, then product strategy and data analysis. Skills like prompt engineering and generative AI appear in a noticeable minority.
Median US AI PM salary: roughly $200k. Middle 80% ranging from around $130k to $270k. Junior roles cluster just above $100k; senior roles in the mid-$200ks. Leading AI labs and big tech push these bands even higher.
US vs Europe vs India: The Honest Summary
How to Actually Use This Data
Sources
High-level synthesis of PM job market conditions based on multiple reports and datasets compiled in this analysis.
James Gunaca – Product Management Job Market Reports 2025 (June, October, November, December) – LinkedIn posts summarising global and US PM job trends.
Institute of Product Leadership – Product Management Hiring Trends Insights Report Jan–Aug 2025 (PDF).
IPL / Product Leaders Forum – LinkedIn summary posts on Product Management hiring growth in India (including +42% overall growth and +87% senior PM growth).
LinkedIn PM job market reports – monthly breakdowns of PM roles by level and geography, as referenced in James Gunaca’s analyses.
Recruited – PM Job Market Insights (European PM Job Market) based on LinkedIn data for EEA and UK.
Reddit – Product Management Jobs Reports 2025 (community-compiled statistics on PM job postings and level mix).
Axial Search – Market Insights from 592 AI Product Management Jobs (US AI PM job postings dataset).
Aakash Gupta – The Definitive Report on the AI PM Market (global AI PM career transitions and compensation overview).