The following article discusses the career path of Project Director. Learn about how to become one, education requirements, job duties, traits and qualities, national salary outlook as well as top national employers of Project Directors.
Sponsored School(s)
Job Duties
Generally speaking, project directors are responsible for a certain project, ensuring that it is properly managed, implemented, and above all completed. They hold overarching responsibility for guiding the activities of everybody involved in the project. They coordinate each element of the project, ensuring that it is able to meet the set goals. Usually, project managers work under significant constraints, having limited personnel, time, and money available.
Project directors are involved with the concept long before the project has even started. They have a full understanding of what the expected outcome is of the concept and they develop strategic plans to ensure those goals can be met under the limitations of the resources that are available. They develop a phased approach to the project, ensuring staff and money is available for each phase. As things progress, they often have to make adjustments to ensure the project stays on track. They also have to monitor the successes and failures that have so far been achieved, and report on this to other senior managers.
Other job duties of a project director are:
- Having responsibility for large projects, or for specific elements of particularly large projects.
- Managing available resources, including the teams working on the project.
- Ensuring that each element of the project plan is properly designed and implemented.
- Tracking the different elements of the project plan and making adjustments as and where needed to stay on track.
Where We Work
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics does not maintain data for project directors. This is mainly because they can be found in any industry and any company, anywhere in the country and even the world. They could be responsible for a quick and short project in a disaster relief charity, or for a long term project in a tech company looking at creating a new search engine function, for instance.
How to Become
Project directors usually work in office environments during full time hours. The exact educational requirements they have to meet vary depending on what field they are completing a project in. Usually, however, they have a bachelor’s degree in a field related to the industry, supplemented by a master’s degree to give them the manager and leadership skills they require. They often also have many years’ work experience.
Education Requirements
Most project directors firstly have a bachelor’s degree in a field relating to their industry. For instance, if they are responsible for a project in manufacturing, they often have a bachelor’s degree in engineering. Most also have a master of business administration (MBA in Project Management) degree or a different type of graduate degree to further ensure they have the appropriate skills for the job.
Traits & Qualities
The most effective have the following traits to some degree or other:
- Strong leadership skills
- Ability to act as change agents and instill confidence in order to embrace change as well.
- Team workers, while at the same time capable of working alone under minimal supervision
- Excellent communication skills, both verbal and written
- Confident
- Strong interpersonal skills
- Results driven and detail oriented
Minimum Education
Master’s Degree
The national average salary estimate for Project Director was $82,923. This number is estimated from over 265,924 employees, users past and present job advertisements from Indeed.com. This equates to an hourly salary of $43.19 and monthly of $6,910.
- .
- .
- Most Reported
- .
- .
- .
- .
- .
- .
- .
$15,000
$208,000
The following section lists Project Director salaries in each state around the country. The figures are based on the total number of job postings through Indeed.com. For example, Texas had the largest quoted salary of $103,706 while Oklahoma had the smallest quoted salary of $42,570.
According to Indeed.com, the following states had employers looking to hire a Project Director. The quoted salary figure represents the average salary from all job postings by this employer.
| Employer Name | Location | Average Salary |
|---|---|---|
| NES Global Talent Project Director | Texas | $234,594 |
| Hamilton Mayer Project Director | California | $220,219 |
| AppleOne Project Director | California | $220,000 |
| Mackenzie Stuart plc Project Director | Texas | $216,963 |
| Jewish Community Federation of San Franicisco Project Director | California | $189,580 |
| Mackenzie Stuart Ltd Project Director | Georgia | $163,138 |
| S.R. Clarke & Associates, LLC Project Director | California | $162,921 |
| Biotech Partners Project Director | New Jersey | $160,000 |
| G. Peterson Consulting Group, Inc. Project Director | Minnesota | $144,230 |
| eMamba Inc Project Director | California | $135,000 |
| San Francisco Department of Public Health Project Director | California | $130,958 |
| The DAKO Group Project Director | Michigan | $129,792 |
| City and County of San Francisco Project Director | California | $127,579 |
| The San Francisco Department of Public Health Project Director | California | $126,902 |
| City & County Of San Francisco Project Director | California | $126,281 |
| ITAC Solutions, LLC Project Director | Virginia | $121,914 |
| Executive Leadership Solutions Project Director | California | $115,000 |
| Hire Resolve Project Director | Texas | $112,714 |
| CyberCoders Project Director | Washington | $112,375 |
Learn More
- Project manager – Wikipedia
- Project Management Careers
- Project Manager Salary
- Technical Project Manager Salary
| Career Name | Average Salary |
|---|---|
| Gaming Manager | $84,668 |
| Risk Analyst | $84,024 |
| Internal Auditor | $83,754 |
| Information Technology Manager | $83,668 |
| Revenue Manager | $83,304 |
| Business Systems Analyst | $82,655 |
| Forensic Accountant | $82,160 |
| Accounting Manager | $81,709 |
| Procurement Manager | $81,418 |
| Healthcare Manager | $81,093 |
