SUMMARYFor many years middle managers’ work, career and future role have been the subject of gloomy descriptions, assertions and predictions. These are described and compared with studies, including our own, that give a more optimistic picture of what is happening to middle management. We also cite survey information about numbers, salaries and job mobility of UK managers, including middle managers. We argue that before generalizations, either optimistic or pessimistic, can justifiably be made, attention needs to be paid to the complexity of changes affecting middle managers’ jobs, to the diversity of organizations in which middle management work and the complexity of individual reactions to these chan