Explore jobs
Find specific jobs
Explore careers
Explore professions
Best companies
Explore companies
The differences between professional services project managers and project leaders can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 4-6 years to become both a professional services project manager and a project leader. Additionally, a professional services project manager has an average salary of $110,886, which is higher than the $98,559 average annual salary of a project leader.
The top three skills for a professional services project manager include project management, customer satisfaction and process improvement. The most important skills for a project leader are project management, work ethic, and C++.
| Professional Services Project Manager | Project Leader | |
| Yearly salary | $110,886 | $98,559 |
| Hourly rate | $53.31 | $47.38 |
| Growth rate | - | 9% |
| Number of jobs | 190,133 | 221,165 |
| Job satisfaction | - | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 73% | Bachelor's Degree, 68% |
| Average age | 44 | 44 |
| Years of experience | 6 | 6 |
The job of a professional services project manager is to ensure the delivery of client projects on budget and on time while maintaining your company's profit margins. You will be responsible for managing and communicating deliverables, risks, project timeline, ROI, and issues. In addition, you will be managing and overseeing complex projects, and planning team and client meetings. Other duties include counseling and disciplining consultants and internal personnel on technician and professional issues, providing leadership and technical expertise on how to design and deliver an efficient, reliable, and cost-effective technology infrastructure.
A project leader is responsible for supervising the team and managing the distribution of tasks to ensure the project's success with the highest efficiency and accuracy. Duties of a project leader include motivating the team, managing the team's needs and concerns, providing effective strategies to improve the team's performance, creating reports, monitoring the team's progress, and maintaining the coordination between team members. A project leader should have exceptional leadership skills to handle the team's operation and identify areas of improvement to deliver excellent results.
Professional services project managers and project leaders have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Professional Services Project Manager | Project Leader | |
| Average salary | $110,886 | $98,559 |
| Salary range | Between $85,000 And $143,000 | Between $70,000 And $138,000 |
| Highest paying City | Seattle, WA | San Francisco, CA |
| Highest paying state | Washington | California |
| Best paying company | CME Group | Boston Consulting Group |
| Best paying industry | Technology | Professional |
There are a few differences between a professional services project manager and a project leader in terms of educational background:
| Professional Services Project Manager | Project Leader | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 73% | Bachelor's Degree, 68% |
| Most common major | Business | Business |
| Most common college | Stanford University | Stanford University |
Here are the differences between professional services project managers' and project leaders' demographics:
| Professional Services Project Manager | Project Leader | |
| Average age | 44 | 44 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 66.1% Female, 33.9% | Male, 69.0% Female, 31.0% |
| Race ratio | Black or African American, 6.2% Unknown, 4.7% Hispanic or Latino, 8.8% Asian, 12.0% White, 67.7% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.5% | Black or African American, 6.2% Unknown, 4.7% Hispanic or Latino, 8.8% Asian, 12.0% White, 67.7% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.5% |
| LGBT Percentage | 11% | 11% |