How To Become A Creative Project Manager: What It Is and Career Path

What is a creative project manager and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Quoted expert

Yash Egami

Creative project managers plan and organize project budgets, timelines, the scope of work, and more. They serve as the liaison between the creative team and the client to establish expectations as well as monitoring project timelines, workloads, and project objectives to ensure that they all stay on track. Creative project managers earn an average sum of $88,000 annually or $42 per hour.

Creative project managers play a vital role in keeping projects moving internally, and they usually work in the creative industry and ensure proper coordination between different teams. They work primarily on creative projects ranging from website design to video production. They oversee the work of creative professionals and have the ability to work with all levels of management.

Creative project managers typically hold a bachelor's degree in graphic design, business, or other relevant fields. They are expected to be skilled at organizing, multitasking, and communication. Most employers also require candidates to possess a keen eye for detail and some basic knowledge of creative projects and processes. Also, they need to be familiar with project management tools and workflows.

What general advice would you give to a creative project manager?

Yash Egami

VP, The One Club

A recent Forrester report says that the ad industry will lose 50,000 jobs through 2021, with 35,000 of them already lost since the pandemic. The traditional ad agency model was already in trouble, with many brands hiring away talent and creating their own in-house agencies. Add to that the recent reckoning with the Black Lives Matter movement, and what we're seeing is an industry that is being forced to go through monumental change in order to survive.

While traditional roles like art director or copywriter are on the decline, the good news is that, in an effort to reinvent themselves, agencies are seeking creatives with digital skills like UX design and programming. The rise of in-house creative departments has also meant more opportunities for job seekers within brands rather than agencies. And because of the demand for more diversity from clients and those within advertising, recruiters are making more of an effort to hire multicultural talent.

At The One Club for Creativity, we've been at the forefront of change in the industry through our diversity and inclusion, professional development and gender equality programs. We recently hosted our annual multicultural career fair, "Where Are All the Black People?" that brought together thousands of diverse talent with 40 agencies and companies looking to hire. We launched One School, a free online program for Black creatives who want to get into the industry but don't have a portfolio or the economic means to afford to go to ad school. And we're working on upskilling courses for professionals who want to reinvent themselves or keep up with the changing demands of our industry.

So if you're a recent graduate who specializes in art direction, our advice would be to keep an open mind about what kind of company you want to work for and think about expanding your skillset to include digital skills so that you can future-proof your career. Where you are isn't as important because, since the pandemic, agencies have become more comfortable with working remotely and they are more open to having a workforce not centered on the traditional agency hubs, like New York or Los Angeles.

ScoreCreative Project ManagerUS Average

Salary

5.9

Avg. Salary $75,415

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

7.5

Growth rate 10%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.1

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.23%

Asian 8.15%

Black or African American 3.04%

Hispanic or Latino 8.67%

Unknown 5.32%

White 74.58%

Gender

female 58.50%

male 41.50%

Age - 38

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 38

Stress level

7.5

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

9.0

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

3.5

Work life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a creative project manager

Explore creative project manager education requirements

Most common creative project manager degrees

Bachelor's

79.5 %

Associate

11.0 %

Master's

7.1 %

Start to develop specific creative project manager skills

Skills	Percentages
Digital Marketing	8.78%
Creative Projects	7.93%
Creative Services	4.51%
PowerPoint	4.43%
Client Facing	4.36%

Complete relevant creative project manager training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New creative project managers learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a creative project manager based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real creative project manager resumes.

Research creative project manager duties and responsibilities

Manage a team of .Net and PHP developers.
Manage creative team (editorial and design) copywriting, proofreading
Manage creative team to develop packaging, hang tags and POS assets for all products.
Manage migration of the defect/change request intake process from SharePoint to JIRA workflow management system.

Prepare your creative project manager resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your creative project manager resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a creative project manager resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable creative project manager resume templates

Build a professional creative project manager resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your creative project manager resume.