Director of Project Management

Career Area: Business Management and Operations

Occupation Group: Project and Program Managers

Salary

Percentile wages tell how much a certain percentage of an overall population in a geographic area or within a given industry or field makes. The percentile wage estimate is the value of a wage below which a certain percent of workers fall.

An example would be the 25th percentile, 25 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 75 percent earn more than the estimated wage value. At the 75th percentile, 75 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 25 percent earn more than the estimated wage value.

A typical Director of Project Management earns the following wages (national and state):

State

The average salary in North Carolina for those pursuing this career is $97,211

National

The average salary in the United States for those pursuing this career is $101,056

What Does a Professional in this Career Do?

Provides strategic direction for projects within a business or large organization. May oversee the work of project managers or manage organization-wide projects. Oversees and coordinates the resources needed for projects with a defined scope, start and completion point.

Employment Trends

The job demand and job growth statistics shown here were derived from job posts over the past year. Expected job growth projections are extrapolated from year-over-year job post listing history.

Job demand and job growth is expected at the following rates:

Skills

A professional in this position typically utilizes the following skills in the course of everyday work in this exciting and challenging field:

Baseline Skills

The following are baseline skills every Director of Project Management is expected to have in order to experience success in this field:

• Communication Skills: The ability to convey information to another effectively and efficiently.
• Planning: Working experience with the process of thinking about and organizing the activities required to achieve desired goals.
• Teamwork / Collaboration: Experience working in collaborative efforts with a team to achieve a common goal or to complete a task in the most effective and efficient way.
• Problem Solving: Problem solving consists of using generic or ad hoc methods, in an orderly manner, for finding solutions to problems.
• Building Effective Relationships: Building relationships is about your ability to identify and initiate working relationships and to develop and maintain them in a way that is of mutual benefit to both yourself and the other party. Good relationships are the key to getting things done and are essential when your success is dependent on others.

Specialized Skills

These skills are specific to working in this career:

• Project Management: Project management is the discipline of initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing the work of a team to achieve specific goals and meet specific success criteria.
• Budgeting: Experience planning how the financial resources of a business or department are to be allocated during the next business period.
• Project Planning and Development Skills: Project management is the discipline of initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing the work of a team to achieve specific goals and meet specific success criteria.
• Scheduling: Working experience making schedules, which are basic time-management tools, consisting of a list of times at which possible tasks, events, or actions are intended to take place withing an organization.
• Staff Management: Working experience with the management of subordinates in an organization.

Distinguishing Skills

Any Director of Project Management that possesses the following skills will stand out against the competition:

• IT Management: IT management is the discipline whereby all of the information technology resources of a firm are managed in accordance with its needs and priorities.
• Waterfall Development Process: Working experience of the Waterfall Development Process. In software development, it tends to be among the less iterative and flexible approaches, as progress flows in largely one direction through the phases of conception, initiation, analysis, design, construction, testing, deployment and maintenance.
• Conflict Management: Experience handling, controlling and guiding a conflictual situation to achieve a resolution.
• Financial Management: Financial management refers to the efficient and effective management of money (funds) in such a manner as to accomplish the objectives of the organization.
• Resource Management: In organizational studies, resource management is the efficient and effective development of an organization's resources when they are needed.

Experience

This position typically requires the following level of experience. The numbers presented in the pie charts below were derived from actual job posts over the past year. Not all job postings list experience requirements.

Common Job Titles

It is possible to find work in this field in positions commonly listed as the following job titles:

• Director, Project Management
• Director Of Project Management
• Project Management Director
• Director It Project Management
• Director Of Special Projects

Similar Occupations

If you are interested in exploring similar occupations, you may want to research the following job titles:

• Director of Program Management
• Senior Project Manager
• Operations Project Manager
• Healthcare Project Manager