Project Manager salary
What a project manager actually earns, from 2,548 live job postings blended with the official US OEWS (Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics) wage anchor. Pick a market for its median and range, then read the seniority split, the trend, and the country comparison below. Updated 2026-09-06.
Switch the market above to see project manager pay in the 7 countries our sources cover, each with its own cost of living. The trend, seniority, and state detail below are United States data, where the official record runs deepest.
What the number means
Project management pays broadly because the title is broad: the same two words cover a coordinator chasing a checklist and a program lead owning a business line. The middle half of US postings runs from about 88,000 to 144,000 dollars, with a blended median near 115,000 and an official OEWS median of 100,750 across a million-person occupation. What the pay reflects is ubiquity, not a hot market: every industry needs delivery, so the demand is deep and steady rather than spiking, which is why the trend since 2021 is a modest 7 percent while newer tech roles ran double that. The lever that actually moves a project manager’s number is scope, not certification, though a PMP (the Project Management Professional certification) is the signal that unlocks the interview. If your pay has stalled, the question is whether you are managing tasks or owning outcomes; the band above pays for the second.
Open project manager roles
Live openings tagged to this occupation, from company career pages and remote boards. Apply at the source.
- Project Coordinator at Uni SystemsAlbania · RemoteTodayApply
- Contract Pipeline Project Manager (Contractor) at Digital Reach AgencyUnited States · RemoteTodayApply
Project Manager at LeidosUnited Kingdom · Remote$80k–$102kTodayApply
Senior Recruiting Program Manager at Included HealthUnited States · Remote$128k–$168kTodayApply
Project Manager, Lifecycle & CRM at Ryz LabsArgentina · RemoteTodayApply
Associate Project Manager - Healthcare Advertising at Precision Medicine GroupUnited States · Remote$54k–$67kTodayApply
By seniority
Posted-median pay by seniority signal in the title, from our corpus. Noisy at the edges where sample sizes are small.
By country
- United States$98,996$126,568$164,500
- Canada$66,698$81,338$104,016
- United Kingdom$61,396$76,285$95,060
- Ireland$61,396$74,227$88,683
- Australia$96,761$118,029$143,350
- Netherlands$60,531$73,933$83,569
- Mexico$17,732$22,697$28,371
Switzerland · official wage bands
median CHF 10'375/month
Swiss postings do not state pay, so these are not posted salaries: they are the federal wage survey (Lohnstrukturerhebung 2024) for the ISCO group 12 Führungskräfte im kaufmännischen Bereich: standardized gross monthly, full-time, 13th salary included pro rata. The band covers the whole occupation group, which is coarser than this occupation alone.
Annual ≈ CHF 124'500 at the median. Source: Bundesamt für Statistik, LSE 2024.
Top-paying US states
OEWS median by state, highest first.
- California$160,926
- Washington$148,878
- New York$144,406
- Virginia$141,732
- Delaware$114,310
- New Jersey$113,320
Roles that pay more, that these skills already reach
Median pay from each destination’s own postings, with the readiness a project manager profile already covers.
- 157 open financial controller roles$137,984 median · +$11,416 · 18% readiness
Every measured move out of this role, ranked by readiness: alternative careers for a project manager.
Is your offer fair?
Run a specific number through FairElephant, which weighs it against this data, your location, and remote market rates.
Move into or out of project manager
- business analyst → project managermeasured route
Related salaries
- Product Manager salary$171,066 median
- Marketing Manager salary$137,211 median
- Financial Analyst salary$112,400 median
Quick answers
How much do project managers make?
The live-posting US median is about 115,000 dollars, with a typical range of 88,000 to 144,000. The official BLS OEWS median for project management specialists is 100,750, across a roughly one-million-person occupation.
Does a PMP increase project manager salary?
It helps mainly by getting you interviews and into higher-scope roles; pay scales with the size of what you own more than with the certificate itself.
Why has project manager pay grown slowly?
Demand is deep and steady rather than spiking, so pay rose about 7 percent since 2021, well below the newer tech roles that doubled that.
Method: bands are the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles of live US postings with stated pay, shrunk toward the official OEWS anchor by sample size (the “blended” figure). Trend is the OEWS annual median for SOC (Standard Occupational Classification) code 13-1082. Unemployment is the 2025 BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) CPS (Current Population Survey) annual-average rate for “Project management specialists.” Live corpus 2,548 observations, 2026-09-06. Definitions in the glossary.