Perhaps just my experience but I feel like in the past it used to be more expected to have a management reference from past jobs. In the last couple places I've worked, management was sort of behind the scenes and I interacted much more with my coworkers. Well, I actually worked with my coworkers. So they would better position to assess me if contacted as a reference.
Does it look better having a manager as a reference, than a non-manager? Some places I've applied to even specified they are looking for management references. Is it typical that hiring managers prefer references from management?