A presentation of various industries where there is a strong demand for project managers.
Information technologies
According to the annual project management salary survey conducted by the Project Management Institute (PMI), close to 50% of projects in Canada are projects related to IT. So it is normal for the industry to be greedy for project managers! It also imposes its salary scale on the other sectors.
15% of project managers interviewed work specifically in this sector, earning a median annual salary of $98,000, exactly the median salary of project managers in Canada, all sectors combined.
The government
This is not an industry strictly speaking but rather an employer of choice. The various levels of government have to turn to technology, while ensuring public confidentiality.
To achieve this, it needs an army of seasoned “agile” and “DevOps” project managers. That’s why 12% of Canadian project managers interviewed by PMI work for the government, with a median salary slightly below the average ($97,000 per year). In addition, there are social benefits and the golden pension plan.
Construction
The construction sector is the field where there has always been project managers. They are counted on to fight cost overruns and the repeated delays for large real estate and infrastructure projects.
The median annual salary of project managers in the construction field is $95,000.
Engineering
Engineers that turn to project management are clearly in demand. 8% of the project managers in the PMI survey are in the engineering field, and their median salary is far above average: $103,000 per year.
Finance
“FinTech” has the wind in its sails in Canada. As evidence, start-ups offering financial products and services have gone from 40 in 2015 to more than 250 in 2017, says Dinaro Ly, director at MaRS.
Except that it takes project managers to oversee development of all these new financial applications! Indeed, 9% of the PMI survey respondents work in this sector, for a median annual salary of $96,750.