Salary and Market Trends for PMO

The Association for Project Management (APM) have recently released the latest Salary and Market Trends for 2021 report. The survey itself was conducted in November 2020 – right in the middle of the pandemic – and provides insights across the whole membership of APM which includes project managers, programme managers and of course PMO.

We’ve always said that the myriad of job titles in PMO can sometimes not be the most helpful and with this report, we see eight different titles which means less consensus or statistical accuracy with some of the results.

The titles include; PMO Director, PMO Manager, PMO Administrator, PMO Officer, Project Office Support, Project Co-ordinator, Project Administrator, Programme Office Support.

Of the 2626 respondents, there are around 195 which are PMO related (7% of all responses)

The report itself looks at the salary levels across the roles plus various insights on market trends such as future skills, climate change and the impact of project management on society.

The highlights of the report include:

Average salary of a project professional is £47,500
49% of participants earn more than £50,000
Energy remains the sector with the highest average salary at £60,000 (at time of the survey)
Out of 13 regions 9 saw an average salaries increase
There was a £10,000 salary increase seen by portfolio managers.

So let’s dive a bit deeper into the statistics and look at the PMO related roles.

Average PMO Salaries

PMO Director – £82,500 (no information)
PMO Manager – £55,000 (53 responses)
Programme Office Support – £32,500 (no information)
PMO Officer – £32,500 (35 responses)
PMO Administrator – £30,000 (no information)
Project Office Support – £ 27,500 (36 responses)
Project Co-ordinator – £27,500 (70 responses)
Project Administrator – £27,500 (no information)

It’s fair to say we could group together some of the role titles like Administrators and Officers to give something which makes it more statistically viable and more accurate insight, however with just 195 responses across eight job titles I don’t think we’re seeing a fair reflection of what is actually happening in the marketplace.

You can also have a play with the data with an interactive chart on the APM website here.

Other data related to employment, unfortunately, doesn’t go into splits across different roles but you can read the report to find out more about areas such as confidence in the marketplace etc

Future Trends

The trends side of the report gives some insights for PMO professionals to consider and kicks off with some thoughts about the significant challenges the project profession as a whole might face.

The survey took place in the middle of the pandemic and shortly after Brexit and was at the forefront of people’s minds, the next area of talent and skills is something that always seems to be an ongoing challenge and will probably remain so.

The next areas give us insights into perhaps what kinds of projects will become more prominent – we’re already seeing ‘digital transformation” become an increasingly used buzzword. With climate change, will we finally see “green project management” back on the agenda after many years of it being talked about but no real action taking place.

It’s interesting to see data analytics on there – something which definitely impacts the roles of those in the PMO – whilst significant at a third, there is still much to understand and do before it becomes as burning a need as something like Agile.

The report gives further insight into some of these challenges and can be downloaded here.

Whilst the APM is very much focused on project management delivery roles, the PMO side is still a poorer relation in terms of responses to this report. We’re looking forward to seeing more accurate insights into PMO salaries and trends through the new House of PMO professional body. You can head over there to become a free member to join up and contribute.