Get an IT (information technology) project delivered on time and on budget, with a team you do not directly control. Experience first, then the title.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Counsellors: send it to a student from your own email in one click.
The median pay is about $139,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $91,000 at the lower end to about $215,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
6 to 10 years after high school, on the usual route.
$8,000 to $58,000 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
No. There is no licence to hold, though many employers still ask for training or a certificate.
Moderate demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$139,000
Lower end
$91,000
Upper end
$215,000
Job Bank calls this job 'computer projects manager' (NOC 20012), a management code that also includes IT (information technology) department managers. Its national median is $66.67 an hour, about $139,000 a year at 40 hours a week. The lower end is $43.75 an hour and the upper end $103.37. These are figures for people already in the job, which usually comes after years in a technical role, not for new graduates.
$75.43 an hour
The median in Nunavut, about $157,000 a year, the highest in Canada
Among the provinces, Quebec ($67.55) and Alberta ($67.31) lead, with Ontario at $66.67. Newfoundland and Labrador is lowest at $54.50. Some project managers work on contract instead, billing by the day with no benefits.
Roughly, all in
$8,000 to $58,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is a two year college diploma at the cheaper rate, then moving up from a coordinator role with the employer paying for the PMP (Project Management Professional) exam and its required training, which is the usual pattern. The high end is a four year degree at the top of the range plus a graduate certificate in IT (information technology) project management and paying for the exam and training yourself. An MBA (Master of Business Administration) runs $50,000 to $130,000 and is not counted here because most project managers never get one. Years of hands on delivery experience weigh more with employers than any of these credentials.
Employers usually pay for the PMP (Project Management Professional) once you are in a coordinator or junior project role.
Bonuses
Offered at many banks and large companies, often tied to delivery.
Pensions
Governments and Crown corporations, which run many of the biggest IT (information technology) projects in Canada, offer pensions.
Hybrid work
Most project managers are in the office 2 or 3 days a week.
Training and certification fees
Almost always covered.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Nobody hires a project manager with no projects behind them. You earn the title by doing the work next to someone who has it.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
English, math, business and computer science. Run something: a club event, a fundraiser, a team. Notice what goes wrong.
Degree or diploma
2 to 4 years
Computer science, business, engineering or a college computer systems program. Co-op terms at a large organization show you how projects really run.
Technical or coordinator job
3 to 6 years
Developer, business analyst, systems administrator, or project coordinator supporting a senior project manager. This is where you learn what can go wrong.
Certify
6 to 12 months of study
The PMP (Project Management Professional) is the credential most ads ask for. It needs years of project experience, more if you have no degree, plus a training course. An 8-month graduate certificate, such as Seneca's, is one way to prepare, and it can be taken part time.
Project manager, then program manager
Year 6 to 10 onward
Small projects first, then bigger budgets and several projects at once.
English
Status reports, plans and difficult emails. Writing clearly is the job.
Math
Budgets, schedules, estimating. Spreadsheets all day.
Business
Why the project exists and who pays for it.
Computer science
You must understand what your developers are telling you, especially when they are telling you it will be late.
No licence or professional college. The PMP (Project Management Professional), run by the PMI (Project Management Institute), is the credential that matters, and many government and bank postings will not consider you without it. The CAPM (Certified Associate in Project Management) is the junior version for people without the experience yet. Agile certifications like Certified ScrumMaster are cheap add-ons that software teams like to see.
Only the school years differ: Quebec adds CEGEP (public college) before a shorter bachelor's. Experience and the certification work the same as elsewhere.
Finish Secondary V
Age 16 or 17
With Secondary IV math in the Technical and Scientific or the Science sequence, or Secondary V math in the Cultural, Social and Technical one. That opens the computer science DEC (Diploma of College Studies).
Computer Science Technology DEC (420.B0)
3 years
3 years at a CEGEP, with no tuition for full-time Quebec residents, ending with an internship. In English at Dawson, Vanier, John Abbott, Champlain and Heritage.
Bachelor's, often
3 to 4 years
A business and IT (information technology) degree such as Concordia's Business Technology Management, which names project manager as a career, or a computer science bachelor's. 3 to 4 years after CEGEP.
Years in a technical role
Several years
Developer, analyst or administrator, leading small pieces of projects.
PMP (Project Management Professional)
Once you have led projects
The same certification as in the rest of Canada, run by the PMI (Project Management Institute).
Things you don't need, but that help.
PMP (Project Management Professional)
The standard. Opens senior and contract roles.
Agile and Scrum credentials
Certified ScrumMaster, PMI (Project Management Institute) Agile Certified Practitioner. Most software teams run in short cycles now.
Program management
PgMP (Program Management Professional) for running several related projects at once. Few people hold it.
Cloud or security literacy
Not certifications you need to pass, but project managers who understand cloud migrations and security reviews get the big projects.
A track record you can quote
'Delivered a $2 million system 3 weeks early' is the whole interview.
Tool fluency
Jira, Microsoft Project, Smartsheet. Easy to learn, expected on day one.
Security clearance eligibility
Federal IT (information technology) projects in Ottawa and Gatineau are a huge employer of project managers.
French
Federal and Quebec roles.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
A short daily stand-up meeting with the development team: what is blocked? A call with the vendor whose delivery slipped again. An hour updating the schedule and the risk list. A steering committee meeting, where you tell the executives overseeing the project that the launch date is at risk and what you need from them to save it. An afternoon of one-on-ones, smoothing a conflict between a designer and a developer. Writing the weekly status report that everyone skims. You build nothing yourself; your job is that everything gets built.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Job Bank counted 124,200 computer projects managers in 2023, and 32% were aged 50 or over. Their median retirement age was 62.
The federal Phoenix pay system, launched in 2016 to pay public servants, paid many of them the wrong amount or nothing at all, and fixing it took years. Project managers still study what went wrong.
On most IT (information technology) projects, the developers report to an engineering manager and the project manager has no authority to hire, fire or promote them. The job runs on persuasion, clear plans and an honest schedule.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Design and product first, then the rest of the field. See every career in tech.
Last checked October 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in Canadian dollars, based on Government of Canada Job Bank wage data and published salary grids. They vary by province, employer and experience. Tuition is for domestic students. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
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