Project management is an exciting career for many professionals for many reasons. But I believe the top 3 reasons are as follows:
- Growth. In 2020, PMI estimated there are 16.5 million project professionals in the world. According to Zippia, in the United States alone, there are over 877k project managers of which almost 69% are men and 31% are female. By 2030, PMI projects that the global economy needs 25 million new project professionals, which means 2.3 million people will need to enter project management oriented employment every year.
- Compensation. Project management can be a nice career. While project managers are not likely going to be super rich (unless you are extraordinarily lucky), the compensation can be quite attractive. According to the twelfth edition of salary survey by PMI, the median salary in the United States is $115,000. More interesting, if you pursue PMP certification, there is a 32% premium. In 2017, CNN recognizing this premium dubbed PMP as the “poor man’s MBA”, and the premium back then was only 20%.
- Transferability. Project management skills are highly transferable. Contemporary organizations are often task-oriented, and skills such as managing people, estimating cost and duration, communicating especially with difficult stakeholders, and tackling risks and issues are highly useful across a broad spectrum of functions and industries. Flexjobs included project management as #12 in their list of 15 important transferrable skills.
But how do a professional build their skills and accelerate their career in project management? Questions such as these are highly important for project professionals of all levels and ages. If you are interested in these and other questions, please help us and help you by completing the following questionnaire. According to our pilot group, the questionnaire requires from 11 to 18 minutes to complete, and all recipients can receive a copy of our findings.
Please click this link to join the study: https://projectmanagement.aidaform.com/career-in-project-management.
Dr. Te Wu
CEO, CPO, PMP, PgMP, PfMP, PMI-RMP)
Prof. Dr. Te Wu is the CEO of PMO Advisory and an Associate Professor at Montclair State University. Te is certified in Portfolio, Program, Project, and Risk Management. He is an active volunteer including serving as the chair of PMI’s Portfolio Management Standard Committee. He previously worked on various standards including portfolio management, risk management and program management for PMI and ISO. As a practitioner, executive, teacher, writer, and speaker, Dr. Wu enjoys sharing his knowledge and experiences and networking with other professionals.