What are you worth?

You're only worth as much as someone is prepared to pay for you. So, if you want a pay rise, it might be time to dust off your CV.

What are you worth? It’s an important question. Yes, we can all cite many honourable reasons for being a project management professional, but you do need to get paid, and hopefully receive a fair return for your hard work. Wellingtone has been analysing salaries for project management professionals for many years.

Working in alliance with APM, we have commenced a new research project that focuses on salaries and career development. The results of this latest piece of research will be published in February.

In the meantime, then, what are you worth?

One of the most widely overused job titles is that of ‘project manager’, so it’s no surprise that the salary range is considerable. Our data shows the salary of a typical project manager standing at just over £46,000, which is against a banding that ranges from salaries in the mid-seventies to those in the mid-thirties. If we incorporate data from individuals with the job title ‘senior project manager’, then the average skips up to £52,000. These are basic salary figures – those of you who charge a day rate as contractors command, on average, £480 per day, with project coordinators typically receiving £328 per day.

The Recruitment and Employment Confederation’s Recruitment Industry Trends Survey, published in October 2014, revealed that 34 per cent of agencies were concerned about a shortage of quality candidates for permanent vacancies. This was up from 25 per cent in 2013 and 11 per cent a year previously. As yet, we do not share that concern.

If, however, you believe that you could be worth more than you are currently getting, then why not polish off your CV, apply for higher-paying roles, and see if others agree with you?

Vince Hines is managing director at Wellingtone Project Management, an APM career development partner.

Other blogs in this series:

Written byVince Hines

Vince is the Managing Director of Wellingtone PPM; the project management consulting company based in Windsor, Berkshire. We retain a particular focus not just in the UK but Ireland and Spain. Wellingtone is the only organisation that is both a Microsoft Gold Partner with the PPM Specialisation as well as an APM Accredited training provider. Wellingtone is also the exclusive UK partner of the PMO Global Alliance and PMO Value Ring as well as PMOtto; the AI Bot for MS Project Online.

Wellingtone works closely with the APM and sponsors the Annual Salary Survey as well as the PMO of the Year Award. We also run our PMO focused annual conference; FuturePMO. We have developed courses in Legal Project Management and the PMO, both of which have been Accreditred by the APM as part of the APM Professional Courses route.

Our "PPM Intelligence" is also demonstrated by publishing The State of Project Management; the largest piece of annual reseearch of its kind in conjunction with UCL, the APM PMO SIG and the APM Systems Thinking SIG.

Vince is an expert Project Management Consultant, having worked with clients across the UK, US and Europe. He retains a number of professional qualifications including MAPM and has extensive real world experience of developing client project management maturity. As an active member of the APM community Vince is also a judge for the Annual APM Awards.