For 15 years, PMI has published a comprehensive biennial salary survey to offer informed insight into the value of project management certifications, experience, and skills. The ninth edition of this survey, Earning Power: Project Management Salary Survey, continues to be a leading source of data, helping employers to determine salary ranges better, and giving project management practitioners a greater awareness of their earning potential.

Earning Power: Project Management Salary Survey is a significant resource for project management practitioners and their employers, as well as compensation committees, human resource departments, and executive recruiters.

The report is free to download here. However, PMI members are granted exclusive access to the online salary query, which allows users to compare new and historical data by position and country. The report contains responses from more than 26,000 respondents in 34 countries, with salary data shown in local currency. It includes data for eight position descriptions, based on information gathered by a third-party research firm and a volunteer group of PMI members.

There is an analysis of 15 demographic variables related to compensation such as position description, years of work experience, years worked in key techniques, years worked in project management, highest formal education level obtained, degree in project management, Project Management Professional (PMP)^® status, training per year, gender, department/function, industry, type of project, number of employees in entire organization, average project team size, and typical project budget.

The report provides reported salary increases over the past 12 months and expected salary increases over the next 12 months. It also contains information on career paths for project managers across the globe, as well as employee benefits, such as stock options, pension plans, and vacation days.

Some of the key findings of Earning Power: Project Management Salary Survey, Ninth Edition are:

• Most participants (72 percent) report that their total compensation, including salary, bonus, and other forms of compensation, increased over the 12 months prior to completing the salary survey, with over one-fourth (27 percent) of respondents reporting increases of at least five percent over that time period.
  
  
• The median annualized salary in this survey, across all countries, roles, and experience levels is US$81,000. Approximately 75 percent of respondents earned at least US$53,689, and the upper 25 percent earned at least US$110,000.
  
  
• Median salary varies widely on a number of key demographic factors, including:
  
  » Country of employment - The country with the highest median salary is Switzerland (US$130,000).

» The number of years of experience in project management - Salary is impacted by the number of years a person has worked within the project management profession. The most dramatic increase is seen in Singapore, where the median salary ranges from US$47,657 for those just beginning in the project management field to US$131,972 for those in the field for 20 years or more. This represents an increase of 177 percent.

» PMP^® status - Certifications such as PMI?s globallyrecognized PMP^® provide a significant advantage when it comes to salary and earning potential.

» Position/role - Salary appears to increase with added responsibility. In Belgium, the median salary increased from US$55,927 for a project manager I to US$77,738 for a project manager II to US$89,482 for a project manager III.

» Average size of project managed (including budget and team size) - The size of projects managed appears to have a positive correlation with annual salary. For instance, in South Africa, those managing projects with larger teams (20 or more people) have a median salary that is 72 percent higher than those managing teams of one to four people