Project Manager skills: what 163 recent job postings ask for

The skills most often requested in 163 US project manager job postings from the month before October 29, 2026 were risk management (24%), Bachelor's degree (20%) and project management (18%). We counted which skills and qualifications each posting asks for; the share next to each skill is the percent of those postings that mention it.

What skills do project manager job postings ask for most?

  1. risk management24%
  2. Bachelor's degree20%
  3. project management18%
  4. PMP18%
  5. stakeholder management18%
  6. procurement17%
  7. requirements gathering15%
  8. Jira15%
  9. project planning14%
  10. budget management13%
  11. ground-up construction13%
  12. Agile12%
  13. change orders12%
  14. contingency planning12%
  15. hospitals12%
  16. MEP12%
  17. owner's representative12%
  18. budget11%
  19. change management11%
  20. construction management11%

What do these postings pay, and how many are remote?

  • Median advertised pay: $132,000 a year, based on the midpoint of the range in the 27 postings that listed pay in US dollars.
  • 21% of postings were marked remote.

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What does a project manager do?

Analyze and coordinate the schedule, timeline, procurement, staffing, and budget of a product or service on a per project basis. Lead and guide the work of technical staff. May serve as a point of contact for the client or customer.

Typical tasks

  • Communicate with key stakeholders to determine project requirements and objectives.
  • Identify project needs such as resources, staff, or finances by reviewing project objectives and schedules.
  • Submit project deliverables to clients, ensuring adherence to quality standards.
  • Confer with project personnel to identify and resolve problems.
  • Plan, schedule, or coordinate project activities to meet deadlines.
  • Other titles for this work: Fiber Project Manager, Implementation Project Manager, Project Management Consultant.
  • Education for new hires, as reported to O*NET: 64% said bachelor's degree required; 12% said associate's degree or other 2-year degree required.
  • U.S. median annual wage for Project management specialists in May 2025: $102,320. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. This occupation-wide figure is not an estimate for a specific job.
  • O*NET lists this occupation as Bright Outlook (projected to grow quickly or have many openings).

Occupation details from O*NET OnLine (Project Management Specialists, 13-1082.00) by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA), used under the CC BY 4.0 license.

How is this data collected?

Postings come from a job search data provider and are limited to US listings from the past month whose title matches this role. Each posting is read by the same keyword extractor behind our free resume match score, and a skill counts once per posting. Years-of-experience lines and the job title itself are not counted. The data refreshes about every three weeks.