While the job classification for a project manager (PM) is extremely broad, professionals in this market with specialized industry skills and knowledge will benefit greatly this year. Among their many responsibilities, these professionals develop and implement requirements, plan and monitor budgets, and create and manage timelines for various projects.

How to stand out

PMs have the upper hand in job searches when they can demonstrate strong time and change management skills along with experience in business intelligence, ERP, customer relationship management, e-commerce, process improvement or Web services, and application development. Another skill that will help these highly detail-oriented and organized individuals find full-time positions is experience dealing with crisis situations.

Other differentiators that will propel candidates to the top are project management experience with fiscal responsibility, and Project Management Institute or Six Sigma certifications. Candidates could also possess another "leading practices" project management methodology specific to the technology or type of work the project manager does (e.g., AcceleratedSAP for SAP, the Applications Implementation Methodology for Oracle, the Rational Unified Process for applications development, etc.).

Average wages

While it can be tough to accurately compute an average rate of pay for a PM because of the wide array of specialty areas, the Yoh Index of Technology Wages indicates an average of US$58.50/hour. The PM role trails only ERP technical consultants, who command an average of US$84/hour, ERP functional consultants, at an average of $81/hour; and firmware engineers, at an average of US$59/hour.