Abstract: To provide a method for manufacturing a perpendicular magnetic recording medium which has improved electromagnetic conversion characteristics, and thus making it possible to achieve the much higher recording density. Disclosed is a method for manufacturing a perpendicular magnetic recording medium to be used for recording information by a perpendicular magnetic recording system, the perpendicular magnetic recording medium including at least a soft magnetic layer, an underlayer, and a magnetic recording layer on a substrate. In the method, the underlayer is formed by sputtering deposition, including a low-gas-pressure deposited layer deposited at a low gas pressure during the deposition, and a high-gas-pressure deposited layer deposited at a high gas pressure during the deposition. The high-gas-pressure deposited layer is formed of a multilayer deposited by decreasing a deposition rate in a stepwise manner.