8 Reasons to Consider a Career in Project Management in 2025

Project management is an industry that’s been around since ancient times, and the demand for project managers in the modern world is growing into 2025 and beyond. 

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics:

• Project manager employment is expected to increase by 7 percent from 2023 to 2033, more than average for all occupations.
• Over the next decade, around 77,000 job openings each year are expected to replace current workers who will switch careers or retire.

Businesses need project managers to oversee individual projects that contain lots of moving parts. The PM is in charge of driving the machine, making sure all those moving parts are working correctly.

Project managers permeate a variety of industries, from home design and construction to software development, marketing, and much more. 

A project manager’s soft-skill game is strong, able to pivot under pressure and lead a team or teams through to the end.

Many project managers work entirely remotely, and usually, the salary is quite competitive.

Read on to see why joining this growing profession in 2025 may be the right career move for you. 

What does a project manager do?

Project managers are in charge of budgeting, planning, and executing projects that have enough moving parts to require oversight. 

For example, a hotel will hire a project manager to oversee the construction of a new building. The project manager will have to coordinate with design teams and architects, an electrician, a plumber, etc., and schedule tasks so that the new building will be finished by the deadline.

Other project managers work with teams that are entirely in-house, for instance in software development.

As far as day-to-day responsibilities, a project manager’s duties can be broken down into the acronym MOTIQ: money, organization, time, information, and quality. These individual components of project management must be overseen on a daily basis:

Money - A project manager is in charge of the finances of every project, which means they have to manage what’s coming in and what’s going out. Therefore, budgeting, invoicing, risk management, and forecasting all fall on the shoulders of the PM.

 Vendors must be paid, and budget overspending must be answered for. Ultimately, the financial health of the project is in the project manager’s hands alone.

Organization - The project manager manages the coordination of individuals within an organization, aka they manage people. PMs must allocate resources effectively, manage utilization rates, and facilitate harmony among teams. They must negotiate roles and rates as well as emotional factors to successfully lead a team. 

Time - Time management is a must for any project, which means project managers have to set up a time-tracking system to account for billable and non-billable hours. Like money, time has to be budgeted for, but will require different tools like a capacity planner. The PM is charged with keeping the project on time according to a schedule pre-approved by the customer. 

Information - Project managers must facilitate an effective flow of information so that everyone on the team can do their jobs and stakeholders know what to expect. 

What the communication around a project looks like, i.e. communication channels, weekly meeting schedule, etc., is one of the most important responsibilities of a project manager. 

Quality - Finally, it’s the project manager’s job to make sure there’s a quality result at the end of the day, one that makes money and pleases the client. Managing quality can take on various forms and often requires substantial soft skills to keep teams motivated to do their best work. 

Skills Required

Many businesses will require project managers to have a Bachelor’s Degree, but this isn’t a prerequisite across the board. The following skills are what employers look for in a project manager:

Leadership - Project managers must possess effective leadership skills to foster collaboration, mutual respect, and motivation among the teams they’re in charge of. 

Time management - It’s the PM’s responsibility to make sure projects are delivered within a reasonable amount of time, making time management an irreplaceable skill that is one of the top requirements of landing the role. 

Organizational skills - Project managers have to plan projects, create budgets, assign tasks, and manage risks. Doing so effectively requires excellent organizational skills to keep track of all the moving parts.

Adaptability - Even the most well-planned projects can find themselves beset by delays and other risks. A good project manager number one, plans for risks, and number two, is able to adapt seamlessly in the face of adversity to keep the project moving forward. 

Communication - The project manager is in charge of establishing what communication looks like for each project. They must possess excellent communication skills to keep team members, stakeholders, and vendors in the loop of what’s happening without scattering the information. 

Command of technological tools - Project managers are expected to have a command of the technological tools it takes to complete a project and preserve the data. They will be in charge of invoicing, planning, tasks, and more and accordingly, must adopt solutions to keep all the information together. PMs commonly use tools like Kanban boards, Gantt charts, mind maps, and communication solutions like Slack.

What industries need project managers?

Project managers often land in the role by accident, coming from the worlds of engineering or architecture in construction, or the creative world in marketing, for example.

However, you can also go down a more linear path, envisioning yourself in charge of dream projects and taking the steps to get there. 

In 2025, you can get into project management by developing yourself within your current discipline, i.e. if you’re currently an editor or writer, you can work toward becoming a marketing campaign manager. 

You’ll be ahead of the game if you embark on a project management career in a field in which you already have some experience. In the professional services world, that covers a broad spectrum. 

If you have any professional or even personal experience related to the following, you can focus on becoming a project manager within that trajectory :

• Construction

• Electric

• Finance

• Marketing

• Interior design

• Web design

• IT services

• Software development

• Legal

• Consulting

• Government

• Non-profit

• Education

Alternatively, you can set out to be a project manager in an area in which you have little to no experience by learning all you can about the business, becoming a project coordinator, and working your way up. 

This will take longer than say, if you’re an electrician and you want to become a PM for landscape design projects that require sophisticated lighting. The more knowledge you already have within that realm, the faster you’ll go.

8 Reasons to Consider a Career in Project Management in 2025

1. You don’t have to adhere to one trajectory

What’s advantageous about project management is there’s no one trajectory you have to go through to make it your career. You can start at the bottom of the ladder as a project coordinator and work your way up to PM or even an executive. 

You can also leverage the experience you already have in a particular industry and transition into the role from your current one. For example, if you’re currently a developer, you could focus on shifting into a PM role in which you’d be in charge of putting out an entire app, platform, feature, etc.

2. Choose your own adventure

Want to switch industries? Have you already found a field you love? Either way, if you want to be a project manager, you can take your pick between a multitude of options when it comes to industry. 

Whether you want to work in the financial world, the nonprofit world, or the marketing world, all those sectors and more are constantly on the lookout for qualified project managers to lead teams and produce results. 

3. Good pay

Project managers are paid well, with a median salary of around $100k per year in the United States. Pay increases with experience and results, with some in-demand project managers able to command their own salaries and schedules. For example, a portfolio manager with around eight years of experience can easily command in excess of $155k per year. 

4. In-demand 

The role of project manager is in demand in 2025, and this growth is projected to sustain into 2027 and beyond. In fact, this demand is driven by a talent vacuum in the industry, as there simply aren’t enough individuals qualified to meet demand. 

According to this report, employers around the world will need to fill around 88 million people in project management roles, with India and China accounting for more than 75% of global project management employment. 

5. Remote positions widely available

If you don’t want to go into an office, you can still be a project manager. Those who prefer to work from home or love to travel can still fulfill their role as a PM as long as they leverage technological tools to stay on top of their projects. Remote project management work is common in finance, marketing, and web design, to name a few.

6. Technological tools are easy to learn

The technological tools used daily by project managers are usually intuitive. Most project management software is designed to be used by virtually anyone, even those with no experience. That’s why a lot of people use them for personal projects. 

Furthermore, other popular tools like automation are easy to set up with a quick Google search or chat with the software’s customer service. AI agents are now being used by PMs as well to take admin work off their plate, and these are designed to work simply by voice command. 

7. AI can’t replace the role

Speaking of AI, unlike other roles, project managers cannot effectively be replaced by machines. At least not in the foreseeable future. By all appearances, the soft skills that make project managers good at what they do are still very much in demand to churn out successful results in this people-first industry.

8. Fulfilling

Finally, project managers can’t operate on an island. It’s a very people-first role that requires you to interface with different people and different perspectives, sometimes across the world. 

The ability to connect with others and create really cool things is usually what keeps project managers happy in their careers. Even if you work remotely, it can be very fulfilling to motivate a team successfully and to make clients and stakeholders happy over and over again. 

FAQ

How much do project managers make?

The median pay for US project managers in 2023 was $98,580 per year or $47.39 per hour, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

How many hours per week do project managers work?

Most project managers work at least 40 hours per week, and many go over that mark. In certain fields like construction, project managers may have breaks between projects where they are off for days or weeks at a time. 

Can you be a project manager and work remotely?

Yes, many project manager roles are done entirely remotely, as is the case with many digital marketing projects; it depends on the industry.

Are there any recommended online certifications available for aspiring project managers?

Here are the most recommended online certifications for project management:

Coursera - IT project management, agile project management, and more

PMP Certification - Project Management Professional Certification

Grow with Google - Google Project Management Certificates

Scrum - Professional Scrum Certifications

Purdue University - Project Manager Program

Is project management a good career move in 2025?

Project managers are more in demand than ever, with growth projected into at least the next 10 years. A career in project management offers decent pay, remote work opportunities, a wide range of industries to choose from, and more. 

If you possess or are working on developing the soft skills needed by a project manager and are willing to put in the work to learn more, you may be a good candidate for the role. 

It’s recommended if you already have significant knowledge and experience in one industry, to leverage that into a transition to a PM role.

Alternatively, you can get certified and get in at the ground level as a project coordinator, even if you’re new to the industry. 

That’s the beauty of becoming a project manager: there’s no one singular trajectory you have to take, freeing you up to approach the role in the way that best suits your lifestyle and goals.