Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine first the job responsibilities undertaken by vice-principals and second to investigate the respective contribution of each job responsibility in preparing them for the principalship. Because new principals are drawn predominantly from the ranks of vice-principals in Hong Kong, it is important to examine whether their current experience adequately prepares vice-principals to take up this senior position. Design/methodology/approach: All vice-principals in Hong Kong secondary schools were sent a questionnaire that asked for the extent of their involvement in various activities and their adequacy of preparation for the principalship. A sequential regression analysis was used to examine the effect of various job dimensions on the vice-principals' perceived preparedness, over and above the effect of their demographic variables. Findings: Seven job responsibility dimensions pertaining to the role of vice-principals were identified. It was found that respondents spend most of their time on staff management and the least on resource management. Among the seven job dimensions, only strategic direction and policy environment were found to have an effect on their perceived preparation for the principalship. Research limitations/implications: The findings reflect that vice-principals take their staff management and resource management responsibilities lightly as they do not perceive their extensive experience gained in staff management as an asset or their inadequate experience in resource management as a deficiency in preparing them for the principalship. As these two dimensions are the core elements of school-based management, they deserve the attention of policy-makers. In addition, policy-makers should address the development of vice-principals in the dimension of strategic direction and policy environment. Originality/value: The paper, using a quantitative methodology, is the first to investigate the link between job responsibility dimensions and preparation for the principalship as perceived by vice-principals. (Contains 5 tables.)