How to Become a Project Manager: Paths In From Any Background

Few people start their working lives as project managers. Many become one by running projects inside another job, writing down what they delivered, and then taking a role with project in the title. That is how to become a project manager from almost any background, and it matches the official guidance: the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) says candidates may gain experience as business analysts or in other related occupations before they move in, and it projects about 76,500 openings a year for US project management specialists from 2025 to 2035.¹ The route has five steps:

1. Find the project work already in your job
2. Ask to own one small project from start to finish
3. Keep a dated log of each project you run
4. Move into a coordinator, assistant or project office role if the jump is too big
5. Add an entry certificate when it fills a real gap

Readers new to the field can start with the basics of what counts as a project and how one is run. The daily work and the skills it calls for are described in what a project manager does all day; the rest of this page is about getting in.

Can you become a project manager without experience?

You can become a project manager without having held the title, but rarely without any project experience. The BLS says some US positions require related work experience, and that candidates sometimes get it by volunteering or through college courses and internships.¹ For most people, the realistic aim is to collect that experience inside the job they already have.

Plenty of people are handed project work with no training first. Researchers use the term accidental project managers for people given project management duties with little or no preparation. A 2010 questionnaire survey of 46 of them in the Western Australian public sector, by Vanessa Darrell and colleagues, found that most had been picked for their technical or managerial expertise and so lacked the competencies a project needed. The accidental managers also tended to work on projects part time and to receive limited training.² It is one small survey of a single state’s public sector, and the paper itself could not be read, so nothing here goes beyond its abstract. If a project lands on you this way, your subject knowledge is already in place, and the project skills are the part to build.

The accidental route is common because projects sit inside ordinary jobs. A consultant whose firm sells project management training, writing on the blog of APM (the Association for Project Management, the UK professional body), notes that most projects happen as part of day-to-day work rather than as visible corporate programs. The post suggests asking to own a piece of work: at first you are both the project manager and the person doing it.³

A payroll officer, say, is asked to help switch the company to a new payroll system. If they keep the timeline, chase the supplier and run the testing, that is project management under another job title. Volunteer to own work like that, then make sure it is visible and written down.

How to become a project manager in five moves

The five moves run from the job you hold now to a role with project in the title. Their order follows the APM blog’s advice: own a small piece of work, grow it, then move into a junior project role.³ No study has compared this order with any other, so reshuffle it to fit the projects your employer runs.

1. Own a task: a one-page note of the scope, the date it was due and what you delivered
2. Coordinate a small project: a simple plan, a log of risks and issues, and the status updates you sent
3. Run a project end to end: the team, budget and timeline you managed, the sign-off, and what you would change
4. Lead larger or several projects: a dated list of projects with their size, your role and the result, kept over years

1. Find the project work already in your job

List the temporary pieces of work you have done in the last two years that had a start, an end and a defined result: a system change, an office move, a new process, an event. You may find you have been running small projects all along. Mark the ones where you planned, coordinated or reported, and treat those as project experience you can describe.

2. Ask to own one small project from start to finish

Ask your manager to put your name on one bounded piece of work, with a deadline and a clear result. APM’s blog suggests growing from a task you do alone to one that involves a second person, at which point you have a project team.³ A good first project has one sponsor, a handful of people and a result anyone can check, such as moving a team’s files to a new shared drive. Keep it small enough to finish within a few months, so you have a completed result to talk about.

3. Keep a dated log of each project you run

For each project, note the goal, the size (people, budget, weeks), your role, the decisions you made and the result. Australia’s AIPM asks applicants for its first certification level to provide documentary evidence of their project work from the past three years.⁴ The same notes turn a CV line and an interview answer into specifics, and writing them as each project closes is far easier than rebuilding them years later.

What to note for each project

• The goal and the date it was due
• Its size: people, budget and length
• My role and what I was accountable for
• Two or three decisions I made
• The result, and what I would change

4. Move into a coordinator, assistant or project office role if the jump is too big

If your employer has no projects for you to lead, move into project support first. England’s National Careers Service says people can become project managers in their organization after working for some time in a project support role, completing qualifications on the job.⁵ Search inside your own organization first, where your log of past projects is already known to the people hiring.

5. Add an entry certificate when it fills a real gap

An entry-level certificate helps most when you have some project work but lack the vocabulary, or when job ads in your sector list one. The main bodies differ by country. PMI, based in the US and active worldwide, says its CAPM needs no experience: a secondary diploma, age 18 and 23 hours of project management education.⁶ Its PMP comes later, requiring two to five years of experience managing projects, depending on your education.⁷ In the UK, APM suggests its Project Management Fundamentals Qualification as a way to learn the basics.⁸ In Australia, AIPM’s practitioner certificate is for team members working under a project manager’s direction.⁴ Check which certificates employers in your country name before you pay for one.

Entry-level jobs that put you inside projects

The best entry-level jobs for a future project manager are the ones that put you inside projects: project coordinator, project administrator, assistant project manager and analyst roles in a project management office (PMO). APM lists entry-level jobs such as assistant project manager or project assistant, and suggests an apprenticeship as an alternative.⁸ APM’s 2015 blog adds that a PMO analyst post gives much quicker exposure to many projects and project managers.³

Each route asks you to show something different. No study turned up in our searches that asked hiring managers which evidence they weigh most, so the table pulls together what official careers guidance and professional bodies describe.

According to APM’s blog, a coordinator role teaches the working language of projects: RAID logs, baselines, schedules and progress reports.³ A sideways move works best when your current job already touches projects. An analyst who gathers requirements for a system change, an engineer who plans a plant shutdown, an operations lead who moves a warehouse: each can apply for a junior role with that work as proof. Pick the entry role closest to the projects you already know.

Your job already touches projectsYour job rarely touches projectsEmployer runs many projectsEmployer runs few projects

Employer runs many projects, Your job already touches projects: Own the next onevolunteer for the next rollout and lead it

Employer runs many projects, Your job rarely touches projects: Ask for project tasksor a spell in the project office

Employer runs few projects, Your job already touches projects: Apply sidewaysjunior roles elsewhere, with your record as proof

Employer runs few projects, Your job rarely touches projects: Start in project supporta coordinator or administrator post

Do you need a degree to be a project manager?

A degree is common and often listed, but it is not the only way in. In the US, the BLS gives a bachelor’s degree as the typical requirement and says the subject can vary, with business and project management among the options.¹ England’s National Careers Service accepts a degree in any subject, and also lists an apprenticeship, working up from a project support role, or applying directly with several years’ experience in sectors such as engineering, construction or cyber security.⁵

Myth

You need a project management degree to become a project manager.

Fact

In the US, the BLS says the degree can be in many fields; England's careers service lists any degree subject, an apprenticeship or project support work.

APM’s UK salary survey shows the same mix among people already doing the job.

The study

Limited evidence

What APM's 2021 salary survey found on education

The Association for Project Management’s Salary and Market Trends Survey 2021 asked 2,626 project professionals, including some working outside the UK, about their education and qualifications. Most (79%) had been educated to university level or above, and 7% gave an apprenticeship or vocational training as their level of education. Most respondents (86%) held a project management qualification of some kind.¹⁰

So about four in five respondents had a university-level education, and about one in five did not. The respondents chose to take part in a survey run by a professional body, so people outside APM’s reach are probably missed, and the figures describe APM’s 2020 respondents only.

Where you live changes the picture. In England, the Associate Project Manager apprenticeship is a Level 4 program that typically lasts 18 months, with a progression route into a project manager degree apprenticeship.⁹ APM notes that Scotland and Wales offer a Level 4 higher apprenticeship framework.⁸ Elsewhere, the public job service or official careers website in your country is the place to look for local equivalents. If you have no degree, read job ads in your sector closely: where an ad asks for a degree or equivalent experience, the second half is your way in.

How long the move into project management takes

There is no standard timeline, and no published study we could find has measured one. The BLS says specialists may begin as trainees on small projects and progress to large, complex ones as they gain experience.¹ England’s National Careers Service says its two project management apprenticeships, at Level 4 and the Level 6 degree, take two to four years to complete,⁵ while Skills England gives 18 months as the typical length of the Level 4 program, plus an assessment period.⁹

The experience rules in step 5 give a rough yardstick for the senior end: a few years of documented project work. In practice, the gap between owning your first small project and getting the title depends on how many projects your employer runs and how visible you make them. Someone in a project-heavy employer who volunteers for every rollout may get there in a couple of years; someone whose job rarely touches projects may need a move to a coordinator role first. Count the finished projects in your log every few months to see how far along you are.

Demand for project managers in the US and worldwide

Demand looks steady in official US figures and large in industry forecasts. The BLS projects employment of US project management specialists to grow 7 percent between 2025 and 2035, which it describes as much faster than the average for all occupations. Many of the yearly openings will come from replacing workers who move to other jobs or retire.¹

Worldwide, PMI’s 2025 Global Project Management Talent Gap report, based on LinkedIn data and PMI’s own workforce analysis, estimates that the world could be short of up to 29.8 million qualified project professionals by 2035.¹¹ PMI sells certification and training, so its forecast is not neutral, and “up to” marks the top of a range. Outside the US, look for the project manager outlook on your own country’s labor-market or careers website.

Steady demand does not mean junior posts are easy to land, and none of these figures says how many openings are entry level. A global forecast tells you little about the handful of coordinator jobs advertised near you this month, so read those ads and note the experience and certificates they ask for. The log you build in steps 1 to 3 is what makes you a candidate for them.

The bottom line

The project manager title often follows the work, so the most direct route starts in the job you have now. This week, list the projects you have already run, ask to own the next one, and start a dated log of goals, size, your role and results.