Project management is a large part of the IT industry. The project manager’s job is to ensure the project gets completed on time and under budget, by managing resources, risks, communicating with stakeholders and making adjustments when necessary. So why would you want to get a job as a project manager? Let’s take a look at a few reasons.
Project Managers Are In Demand
The role of a project manager is used in all kinds of IT projects – software, infrastructure, business process. All projects should have a project manager. This depends on the location and type of work, but these roles are often in high demand.
There is often a demand for this role because of the highly specialised skills that are needed. Not everyone can become a project manager – and it takes a lot of work and experience to become a good project manager. If you decide to move into this role, you should usually find many opportunities for work (depending upon your location of course).
The Salary Is Pretty Good
Project managers are known for their high salary. They fall into a “management” category of IT workers, rather than the developers or technicians, which is reflected by their salary.
These roles can earn upwards of $173,474 per year. This will depend on several factors – your experience, the company, and location.
Project managers are often intermediate or senior professionals in the industry, which contributes to their salary. However, the skills gained and used as a project manager also form a part of this salary. This all means that project managers can earn a higher salary than other IT professionals.
Of course, salary shouldn’t be the only driver in making a choice of career, but it certainly helps to have a full picture of the role.
There Are Good Opportunities For Project Managers
While project managers (or “PM’s”) are more intermediate or experienced IT professionals, it isn’t always the end of an IT career. There are many more opportunities for PMs.
You could move into a Program Manager role. A program manager is kind of like a senior project manager. In short, a program is a collection of projects. A program manager manages this program (group of projects) as well as other project managers.
Also, there are opportunities to move around different companies, as the skills are used among all kinds of IT projects. You could also move into a more business-related role, such as general management or an IT director.
The Skills Are Transferable
The skills that a project manager learns and uses include communication, stakeholder management, resource management, planning and many others. These kinds of skills are put into practice by PMs for IT projects.
However, the skills that they learn are quite transferable. This means that if you were a project manager in a software project, you can apply these same skills to an infrastructure project, and would just need to improve your industry and subject knowledge. You can take a similar approach with moving to other projects – construction, military, research, business, and other areas. All kinds of industries use project management skills, and if you decide to change career, these skills can still be used.
They can even be used in your personal life as well. These skills can help with speaking to others, organizing events and work, and getting things done. Personally, I’m looking to invest in property in the next few months, so if I was a project manager I would be able to use those skills to better execute the project of buying an investment property.