Jobs / Management and business operations / 11-3061.00
Purchasing Managers
Plan, direct, or coordinate the activities of buyers, purchasing officers, and related workers involved in purchasing materials, products, and services. Includes wholesale or retail trade merchandising managers and procurement managers.
- US jobs
- 84,320
- Median wage
- $148,080 a year
- Job family
- Management and business operations
Can agents do the work of purchasing managers?
We read the evidence at the level of the job family, Management and business operations:
- Task levelPartialOnly adjacent evidence. On TheAgentCompany, which gives agents workplace tasks inside a simulated software company, the best agent resolves 42.9% of tasks (a November 2025 result). No task-level benchmark in our collection maps directly to management or business operations.
- Project levelPartialMixed. OpenAI reports that GPT-5.5's GDPval deliverables won or tied against professionals' work in 84.9% of comparisons, and the best agent passes 73.5% of APEX-Agents tasks on the first try. Running a business is weaker: on Vending-Bench 2 the best model ends a simulated year with $15,515, about a quarter of Andon Labs' estimate for a good strategy.
Benchmarks for the job family
These cover work in management and business operations, not always this occupation's tasks.
- 1846 EloClaude Opus 5.5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort, Default Fallback) · 23 Sep 2026Unrated
- 42.9%TTE-MatrixAgent + DeepSeek-V3.2 · 10 Nov 2025Emerging
Typical tasks
From O*NET 31.0. Core tasks first. Few of these tasks have a benchmark today.
- Develop and implement purchasing and contract management instructions, policies, and procedures.
- Locate vendors of materials, equipment or supplies, and interview them to determine product availability and terms of sales.
- Prepare bid awards requiring board approval.
- Direct and coordinate activities of personnel engaged in buying, selling, and distributing materials, equipment, machinery, and supplies.
- Review purchase order claims and contracts for conformance to company policy.
- Review, evaluate, and approve specifications for issuing and awarding bids.
- Administer online purchasing systems.
- Prepare and process requisitions and purchase orders for supplies and equipment.
- Interview and hire staff, and oversee staff training.
- Develop cost reduction strategies and savings plans.
- Control purchasing department budgets.
- Resolve vendor or contractor grievances and claims against suppliers.
Other job titles for this occupation (25)
Category Purchasing Manager · Commodity Manager · Materials Director · Materials Manager · Procurement Director · Procurement Manager · Purchasing Director · Purchasing Manager · Purchasing Supervisor · Strategic Sourcing Director · Commissary Superintendent · Contract Manager · Contracting Manager · Division Merchandise Manager (DMM) · General Merchandise Manager · Merchandise Director · Merchandise Manager · Merchandising Manager · Procurement Services Manager · Procurement Sourcing Manager · Purchasing Coordinator · Sourcing Manager · Strategic Sourcing Manager · Supply Chain Procurement Manager · Vendor Manager