project manager holding a piggy bank for project manager salary

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Average Project Manager Salaries By Country & Title [2020]

How much does a project manager make?

Before we answer this question, some housekeeping:

The only real answer to this question is (the eternally frustrating), “Well, it depends…” As a project manager, your salary depends on factors like your:

Sector
Seniority
Specialization
Location—which country? Urban or rural?
Project management education
Average project budget

Tools like Payscale and Salary.com can provide some good general salary info, but their shortcoming is that they encompass a lot of estimates that don’t hone in on the digital project management niche, which is what we’re focused on here at The Digital Project Manager. They also don’t always provide enough specificity to be useful. So, we started surveying the DPM community to get specific insight into digital project management salaries. Our survey was designed to find answers to questions like:

What’s a typical digital project manager’s salary?
What are the average salaries for related roles?
What’s the going day rate for freelance project managers?

Sound juicy? Jump to the 2020 digital project manager salary survey results.

Are You Being Paid What You're Worth?

Add your voice to the 2023 DPM salary survey! We’ll email you the results once we’ve compiled them, so you can see for yourself.

TAKE THE SURVEY

Hundreds of participants from around the globe filled out the 2020 survey. We also supplemented our survey with salary data from other sources on the web, and we’ve compiled the results here to help you better understand the digital project management career field as it continues to grow. And head’s up—we’re collecting data to update the results for 2021. Please participate by taking a few minutes to complete the survey here:

2020 Digital Project Manager Salary Survey Results

This year, we had hundreds of participants from around the globe, with the majority residing in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada. The remaining 42% of respondents came from a collection of 63 countries—a wider reach than our surveys in previous years.

This year, most professionals identified themselves as Project Managers, followed by Senior Project Managers, Project Coordinators, Head of Project Management, and Project Directors.

The large majority of respondents (79%) work on permanent contracts, with 21% working in contract or freelance roles. More freelancers were represented in the survey data than in previous years.

2020 Salary Highlights

One major trend we observed this year was increases almost across the board, with the exception of a few positions in Canada, and one position in the USA. While Project Coordinators in the USA and Project Managers and Heads of Project Management in Canada saw decreases in average salary, all other positions across the USA, Canada, and the UK saw an increase. It’s important to note that we supplemented the data from our survey with data gathered from sources such as GlassDoor, ZipRecruiter, Indeed, and others.

You can find country-specific details on this below, but overall, the roles of Senior Project Manager and Project Director experienced increases of anywhere from 3% to 23% from last year.

Head of Project Management witnessed a mix of increases and decreases, while Project Coordinators saw an increase in both Canada and the UK, but not the USA. Project Managers also saw a mix of increases and decreases, growing by around 2% in both the USA and the UK, and dropping 4.6% in Canada.

The trends from 2020 depart slightly from trends observed from 2018 to 2019 – which showed increases in salaries for more entry-level and mid-level positions and salary decreases for more senior positions. Last year, we noted that upper-level PMO roles were undergoing a shift, possibly due to flattening workplace hierarchies, or ongoing conversations and regulations that have targeted pay inequality in corporations.

While our data is limited, it’s fair to say that these trends may have contributed to the increases in salaries for positions such as Project Manager and Project Coordinator as they take on responsibilities within a flattened hierarchy. However, it doesn’t account for the increases in more senior roles. This could be due to the higher reliance on those more senior positions in the transition phase to this more flattened hierarchy.

Another interesting trend observed this year was an increase in non-traditional Project Management job titles. 15% of respondents worldwide had job titles that were not necessarily indicative of a PM role. These respondents had titles such as Scrum Master, Developer, Account Manager, Creative Director, Implementation Consultant, and more. This shows that more positions are getting involved in project management and taking on the responsibilities of a Project Manager.

U.S.A. Digital Project Manager Salary Highlights

We received 226 responses from digital project managers in the U.S.A. spanning 67 cities. The salaries for full-time positions ranged from $32,500 to $210,000. The average freelance digital project manager contractor rate presented a wider range of rates compared to last year’s results, varying from $50 to $1,100 a day.

The average freelance digital project manager contractor rate in the U.S. presented a wider range of rates compared to last year’s results, varying from $50 to $1,100 a day.

Compared to 2019, this year’s survey results demonstrate salary increases for most digital project manager positions. The average salary for Project Managers increased from roughly $75,183 to $76,632. Senior Project Managers saw a larger increase from $86,600 to $97,452.

Other higher-level roles also saw increases in salary: Head of Project Management had an increase of $105,155 to $106,882, and Project Directors saw a slightly larger increase of$95,342 to $98,138. Project Coordinators saw the only decrease in the USA, going from $54,896 to $54,394.

Read about enterprise project management salaries here.

UK Digital Project Manager Salary Highlights

We received 64 responses from digital project managers in the United Kingdom spanning 20 cities, with almost half of respondents living in London. The digital project manager salaries ranged from £21,620 to £117,000. The average freelance digital project manager contractor rate varied from £39 to £625 a day.

The digital project manager salaries in the UK ranged from £21,620 to £117,000. The average freelance digital project manager contractor rate varied from £39 to £625 a day.

Compared to 2019, the role of Project Coordinator saw an increased average salary from £30,900 to £32,158. Senior Project Managers and Project Directors both saw much larger jumps of £44,322 to £54,424 and £56,250 to £68,226 respectively.

Project Managers saw a more modest increase from £38,590 to £39,468. Head of Project Management saw an average of £77,233 in 2020.

Canadian Digital Project Manager Salary Highlights

We received 51 responses from digital project managers in Canada across 10 cities, with about a third of responses coming from Vancouver and another third from Toronto. The digital project manager salaries ranged from $40,000 to $110,000, a decrease from 2019’s salary range of $55,000 to $135,000. The freelance project manager’s day rate ranged from $75 to $520.

The digital project manager salaries in Canada ranged from $40,000 to $110,000, a decrease from 2019’s salary range of $55,000 to $135,000. The freelance project manager’s day rate ranged from $75 to $520.

In Canada, we observed a decrease in the salaries of Project Managers and Heads of Project Management, from $72,158 to $68,869 and $106,667 to $90,521, respectively. Project Coordinators and Senior Project Managers both saw raises, going from $51,000 to $53,267 and $75,333 to $89,631, respectively.

How Much Do Project Managers Make?

Otherwise known as, “Am I being paid what I’m worth?”

If you’re looking for an average project manager salary, you’ll find a wide range of answers from career sites and labor organizations.

For instance, looking at the results from a few well-known career sites, the average PM salary in the U.S. is reported to be $66,137 on one site and $136,767 on another.
Likewise, the variance in reported salary ranges makes it difficult to understand where you might even fall on the spectrum, with one site reporting a very wide project manager salary range of $38,805 to $163,947 in the U.S.

We can do better than that.

Below, we show the results of calculating the average salaries for various project management roles by combining salary averages. We combined the data from our 2020 Salary Survey with data from sites like GlassDoor, Payscale, Indeed, LinkedIn, CW Jobs, Neuvoo, telegraph, Zip Recruiter, and other career sites. We’ve only covered the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada, but you can still use these estimates to get a basic idea of project management salaries.

Average Project Manager Salary

This is a broad category that includes project management roles across sectors like IT, government, healthcare, finance, construction, and many more.

Here’s the average salary for project managers:

Project manager salary Canada: $68,869 (CAD)
Project manager salary U.S.: $76,632
Project manager salary U.K.: £39,468

Here are some rough numbers for project manager salaries, on average.

How much does a project manager make per hour?

Based on the average project manager salary listed above and calculated based on a 40-hour workweek, project managers earn an average of $33(CAD)/hour in Canada, $37/hour in the United States, and £19/hour in the United Kingdom. Keep in mind that this hourly rate is a simple calculation based on average annual salaries—not necessarily what you’d charge as your project manager hourly rate if you’re a contract, freelance, or work from the home project manager.

Average Digital Project Manager Salary

Our calculations show a clear difference between a general PM salary (above) and a digital PM salary. Compared to the numbers above, across the board, we see that digital project management pays 1%-12% less than the project management industry average.

Digital project manager salary Canada: $63,366 (CAD)
Digital project manager salary United States: $67,726
Digital project manager salary United Kingdom: £39,072

Across the board, we see that digital project management pays 4-15% less than the project management industry average.

It’s worth pointing out that in our salary survey looking at project management salaries, the reported PM salary was generally consistent with the digital project management salary numbers above.

Average Entry-Level Project Manager Salary

Entry-level PMs go by a few different titles. Typically, the salary falls within the same range as a junior project manager salary, project assistant salary, project coordinator salary, assistant project manager salary, or associate project manager salary. Or, your role might also simply be “project manager”, but with pay starting on the lower end of the earning scale.

Here’s what you can expect:

Entry-level project manager salary Canada: $54,015 (CAD)
Entry-level project manager salary United States: $55,329
Entry-level project manager salary United Kingdom: £34,223

Typically, the salary for entry-level PMs falls within the same range as a junior project manager, project assistant, project coordinator, assistant project manager, or associate project manager.

Average Late-Career Project Manager Salary

Predicting what your salary would be as a late-career, experienced, or senior PM gets tricky. This is because the project management career path can take you in many directions—and not all of them in project management.

It’s important to keep this in mind when considering salary averages as your career advances: instead of looking at a senior PM role, you might be looking at program or portfolio management, business analysis, operations, directorship, consulting, and many other positions.

Late career project manager salary Canada: $94,634 (CAD)
Late career project manager salary United States: $96,908
Late career project manager salary United Kingdom: £60,794

Here are average senior-level salaries, but remember that as your career advances you might be looking at program or portfolio management, business analysis, operations, directorship, consulting, and many other positions.

Average Program Manager Salary

Senior program manager Suze Haworth goes into more detail on the program manager role in her article on becoming a project manager. In many cases, the career paths of project and program management overlap, with program managers drawing a higher average salary than project managers:

Program manager salary Canada: $86,667 (CAD)
Program manager salary United States: $96,855
Program manager salary United Kingdom: £62,273

In many cases, the career paths of project and program management overlap, with program managers drawing a higher average salary than project managers. And advancing along the career path, the average senior program manager salary in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom is $104,918 (CAD), $110,118, and £73,019, respectively.

PROTIP

Are you starting to explore project management as a career? I recommend taking a look at our guide How to Become a Project Manager, which answers questions like, “What is a project manager?” and “What do project managers do?”.

Digital Project Manager Salary Considerations

As with any salary survey, it’s difficult to provide accurate summaries because there are so many variables. So before we dive into the digital project manager salary survey results, here are a few things to think about.

Contract vs. Permanent PM’s

In addition, sure you may have a neat list of agencies that you’ve worked for here and there, but the projects need to be substantial enough to bring you to your next career move.

Generalist vs. Specialist project managers

If you have gathered significant experience under a certain skillset (e.g. understanding a particular CMS really well), this can set you apart from other digital project managers.

With this under your belt, it may allow you to work on more projects pertaining to your skillset and potentially drawing a more premium salary within your industry. However, this is subject to supply and demand, so be sure to evaluate whether the skillset you have will continue to be in-demand!

Industry – IT and banking PM’s are always on the money

A big part of determining a digital project manager’s salary is the industry in which they work. A large bank or software company would provide a much higher salary compared to a non-profit organization or a smaller local company. Of course, at the end of the day, it’s about understanding your needs and what is the best fit.

Location – city slickers get the big bucks

The location factor will always be a salary influencer. Based on our past salary results, major cities that are bigger economic markets have been known to offer higher salaries. This, of course, comes with higher expectations and slightly more pressure in performance. Spoiler alert: this year’s salary survey results are no different.

Participate In The 2021 Salary Survey

You are shaping the present and future of digital PM—the only reason we have these salary insights to share is that our DPM community shared their insight in the survey.

Please pitch in, take the 2021 Salary Survey, and share it with your project manager friends so we all can benefit from important insight into the landscape of our digital careers!

How much does a project manager make?

Before we answer this question, some housekeeping:

The only real answer to this question is (the eternally frustrating), “Well, it depends…” As a project manager, your salary depends on factors like your:

Sector
Seniority
Specialization
Location—which country? Urban or rural?
Project management education
Average project budget

So, we started surveying the DPM community to get specific insight into digital project management salaries. Our survey was designed to find answers to questions like:

What’s a typical digital project manager salary?
What are the average salaries for related roles (Senior Project Manager, Project Coordinator, etc)?
What’s the average day rate for freelance project managers?

Sound juicy? Jump to the 2019 digital project manager salary survey results.

SIDENOTE

We’ve been doing this survey since 2016—we’ve compiled the results from across the years so you can see how the field is changing over time:

Jump to 2018 digital project manager salary survey results
Jump to 2017 digital project manager salary survey results
Jump to 2016 digital project manager salary survey results

Hundreds of participants from around the globe filled out the 2019 survey. We also supplemented our survey with salary data from other sources on the web, and we’ve compiled the results here to help you better understand the digital project management career field as it continues to grow.

And head’s up—we’re collecting data to update the results for 2020. Please participate by taking a few minutes to complete the survey here:

How Much Do Project Managers Make?

Otherwise known as, “Am I being paid what I’m worth?”

If you’re looking for a average project manager salary, you’ll find a wide range of answers from career sites and labor organizations. For instance, looking at the results from a few well-known career sites, the average PM salary in the U.S. is reported to be $72,000 on one site and $133,000 on another.

Likewise, the variance in reported salary ranges (lowest and highest PM salaries) also make it difficult to really understand where you might even fall on the spectrum, with one site reporting a very wide project manager salary range of $27,000 to $131,500 while another site reports a surprisingly high range from $118,500 to $149,000 in the U.S.

“Okay, okay—just give me some basic numbers”

We can do a bit better than that.

Below, we show the results of calculating the average salaries for various project management roles by combining salary averages from sites like Glass Door, Payscale, Indeed, LinkedIn, CW Jobs, Neuvoo, telegraph, Zip Recruiter, and other career sites. We’ve only covered the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada, but you can still use these estimates to get a basic idea of project management salaries.