The project and programme management market has seen an increased level of demand over the last 6 months which has gradually tipped the scales from being roughly in equilibrium at the beginning of 2021 to be a little more weighted towards the demand side. The resulting effect is a marginal increase in salaries and day rates for experienced project and programme managers.
The demand is being felt across most industry areas for an array of different reasons which include: regulatory and compliance projects, system implementations or upgrades, significant business growth and innovation amongst others. 2021 has seen a significant number of projects beginning that had been delayed due to the uncertainty of the pandemic as well as the normal level of projects that would have naturally been happening during a period of economic growth.
The attractiveness of Ireland as a destination for talent to relocate to is a great balancer in this area since project management and program management are highly transferable skills and many projects are international, in nature, with distributed teams. Ireland is a suitable time zone to manage projects and many large organisation use Ireland to join teams in the US and India
Broadly speaking, Project Manager candidates are attracted to high profile and larger-scale projects where they are set up for success and it’s often the case that gaining experience in a new industry area can be appealing for candidates.
Companies tend to be most interested in candidates that have demonstrated the ability to deliver projects, that can demonstrate longevity in their roles (or contract assignments) and are particularly strong on stakeholder engagement. When these elements are combined, companies are often happy to pay a premium.
The march towards Agile practices continues and the vast majority of the time companies are drawn towards candidates that have experience of Agile (lean and SAFe even more so) and can assist them in furthering their Agile maturity journey.
Although our new remote or hybrid world has cast its net across project and programme managers, they tend to be less focused on this area since the nature of the work is often to do whatever is required to reach successful outcomes for their project. International travel is still noticeably subdued but there is a small amount of this being seen in some roles and it’s often the case that candidates are enjoying the novelty of it.