A project leader is the head of a team responsible for carrying out an enterprise. Projects vary, depending on the type of business or industry they are a part of, but project leaders have some essential common denominators across different disciplines.
They are professionals who stick around until the job is done. Their job is not only to make the team do what the project needs, but to make them want to do it. They meet with other leaders on a regular basis and monitor the progress of their projects.
Essentially project leaders are held accountable if the project fails. This is a complex and high-pressure role for people who know what they are doing. Or at least this is what we assume, based on their generous salary, which ranges somewhere between $93,000 and $140,000 annually.
Project Leader Overview
Project Leader Careers
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a project leader. For example, did you know that they make an average of $42.3 an hour? That's $87,987 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 9% and produce 56,000 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does a Project Leader Do
There are certain skills that many project leaders have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed analytical skills, communication skills and creativity.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a project leader, we found that a lot of resumes listed 28.0% of project leaders included project management, while 13.9% of resumes included procedures, and 5.1% of resumes included business process. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the project leader job title. But what industry to start with? Most project leaders actually find jobs in the technology and finance industries.
How To Become a Project Leader
If you're interested in becoming a project leader, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 50.4% of project leaders have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 31.3% of project leaders have master's degrees. Even though most project leaders have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a project leader. When we researched the most common majors for a project leader, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or master's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on project leader resumes include associate degree degrees or doctoral degree degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a project leader. In fact, many project leader jobs require experience in a role such as senior software engineer. Meanwhile, many project leaders also have previous career experience in roles such as software engineer or programmer analyst.
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Project Leader Career Paths
In addition to switching up your job search, it might prove helpful to look at a career path for your specific job. Now, what's a career path you ask? Well, it's practically a map that shows how you might advance from one job title to another. Our career paths are especially detailed with salary changes. So, for example, if you started out with the role of project manager you might progress to a role such as senior project manager eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title contractor-senior project manager.
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Tell us your goals and we'll match you with the rights job to get there.
Average Salary for a Project Leader
Best Paying Cities
Recently Added Salaries
Job TitleCompany  | Company | Start Date | Salary |
|---|---|---|---|
Randstad Project Lead Project Lead | Randstad Randstad | 01/30/2021 01/30/2021 | $85,00001/30/2021 $85,000 |
University of Colorado HIV Prevention Project Leader HIV Prevention Project Leader | University of Colorado University of Colorado | 01/23/2021 01/23/2021 | $63,62201/23/2021 $63,622 |
Google Content Project Lead, Google ADS Content Project Lead, Google ADS | Google Google | 01/15/2021 01/15/2021 | $85,00001/15/2021 $85,000 |
Harvard Maintenance Inc. Lead Project Tech-Lider de Proyectos-Downtown Chicago Lead Project Tech-Lider de Proyectos-Downtown Chicago | Harvard Maintenance Inc. Harvard Maintenance Inc. | 01/11/2021 01/11/2021 | $38,50501/11/2021 $38,505 |
Us Bank Client Integration Project Lead (GTM)-Multiple Locations Client Integration Project Lead (GTM)-Multiple Locations | Us Bank Us Bank | 01/10/2021 01/10/2021 | $62,90001/10/2021 $62,900 |
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Project Leader Resumes
Designing and figuring out what to include on your resume can be tough, not to mention time-consuming. That's why we put together a guide that is designed to help you craft the perfect resume for becoming a Project Leader. If you're needing extra inspiration, take a look through our selection of templates that are specific to your job.
Learn How To Write a Project Leader Resume
At Zippia, we went through countless Project Leader resumes and compiled some information about how best to optimize them. Here are some suggestions based on what we found, divided by the individual sections of the resume itself.
View Detailed InformationTop Colleges for Project Leaders
1. Stanford University
Stanford, CA • Private
2. University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA • Private
3. Northwestern University
Evanston, IL • Private
4. Maine Maritime Academy
Castine, ME • Public
5. University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA • Private
6. California State University - Bakersfield
Bakersfield, CA • Public
7. SUNY at Binghamton
Vestal, NY • Public
8. Villanova University
Villanova, PA • Private
9. San Diego State University
San Diego, CA • Public
10. Bentley University
Waltham, MA • Private
Top Skills For a Project Leader
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 28.0% of project leaders listed project management on their resume, but soft skills such as analytical skills and communication skills are important as well.
- Project Management, 28.0%
- Procedures, 13.9%
- Business Process, 5.1%
- C++, 3.2%
- C #, 3.2%
- Other Skills, 46.6% See All Project Leader Skills
Best States For a Project Leader
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a project leader. The best states for people in this position are New Hampshire, Virginia, New Jersey, and California. Project leaders make the most in New Hampshire with an average salary of $104,739. Whereas in Virginia and New Jersey, they would average $103,258 and $102,917, respectively. While project leaders would only make an average of $99,998 in California, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. Virginia
$103,258
Avg. Salary
2. New Hampshire
$104,739
Avg. Salary
3. New Jersey
$102,917
Avg. Salary
How Do Project Leader Rate Their Jobs?
Top Project Leader Employers
We've made finding a great employer to work for easy by doing the hard work for you. We looked into employers that employ project leaders and discovered their number of project leader opportunities and average salary. Through our research, we concluded that Infosys Public Services was the best, especially with an average salary of $82,915. IBM follows up with an average salary of $95,862, and then comes Atos with an average of $81,130. In addition, we know most people would rather work from home. So instead of having to change careers, we identified the best employers for remote work as a project leader. The employers include Activision Blizzard, Deloitte, and Quintiles Transnational
Project Leader Videos
