What this is

Gururo collected, cleaned and analysed the advertised pay for 15 project management job titles across 16 countries, then checked the result against official wage statistics. The underlying job advertisements are sourced from the Adzuna API; the thresholds, exclusions, currency normalisation, seniority comparisons and cross-checks in this report are ours. Where a figure belongs to PMI or to a statistics agency, we say so on the line.

Next year the report gains a second layer: pay reported directly by project managers through our salary benchmark tool, including certification status, which advertised data cannot see. Add yours anonymously and it goes into the 2027 edition.

The five findings

1. Where you work matters more than what you do

A project manager in the United States is advertised at a median of $106,365. The same job title in India is advertised at $8,372 — a 13-fold difference, and Mexico is lower still on a much thinner sample. No seniority step, no certification and no specialism in this dataset moves pay as far as changing country does.

2. Seniority pays far better in some markets than others

In the United States, “Senior Project Manager” carries +32% over plain “Project Manager”, and “Technical Program Manager” +42%. In Germany, Spain and France the senior step is worth between −2% and +4% — effectively nothing. If you are chasing a title for the money, the title only pays in certain markets.

3. India has the widest pay band of any market measured

In India, the 25th percentile sits at 50% of the median and the 75th at 198% — a spread of 148 percentage points. In the Netherlands the same band is 38 points. A wide band means the job title tells you very little about the money; the employer and the specialism tell you almost everything.

4. The certification premium is real, and it is PMI’s own number

Advertised-salary data cannot see whether a candidate holds a PMP, so we do not claim a premium from our own figures. PMI’s Earning Power survey, 14th edition, published 13 November 2025 and fielded across 14,628 practitioners in 21 countries, reports a 17% median premium worldwide for PMP holders. In the United States it reports a median of $135,000 for PMP holders against $109,157 for non-certified project managers — a gap of roughly 24%. PMI also reports $173,000 for those certified more than ten years against $123,000 for those certified under five.

5. Product and delivery titles out-earn the classic PM title

Weighted across every market, Senior Project Manager leads at $123,432, while plain Project Manager sits at $96,183. Several adjacent titles — Product Owner, Scrum Master, Release Manager — are advertised above the classic project manager title in the same markets.

Median advertised salary by country

Project Manager only, so the comparison is like for like. Local currency as advertised, with a USD conversion for comparison. Read the listings column before quoting a row: Spain, Germany, Belgium, Austria, New Zealand, Poland and Mexico each rest on fewer than 600 advertisements and are far less reliable than the US, UK, Canada or India figures.

USD conversions use the market rate on 2026-10-09 and make no purchasing-power adjustment, so a dollar figure in India or Mexico buys considerably more locally than the same figure in the United States. India and Mexico reflect advertised base pay and are likely to understate total compensation, where allowances and variable pay form a larger share.

Median advertised salary by job title

Weighted by the number of listings in each market, so a title is not flattered by one small expensive country. Only titles appearing in at least five markets are shown.

What the next title is worth

Each figure is the difference against “Project Manager” advertised in that same country, so currency and cost of living cancel out.

How wide is the pay band?

The 25th and 75th percentiles as a share of each market’s median. A wider band means two people with the same job title are paid very differently.

Spain and Mexico both return bands of 13 points, which is implausibly tight for a national market and almost certainly reflects clustered or rounded advertised ranges rather than real pay compression. Treat those two rows as unreliable.

Data collected 2026-10-09. Published 29 October 2026. Next edition planned for 2027, with self-reported pay and certification status alongside the advertised figures. Corrections to Support@gururo.com.