Throughline

Business and finance

Project Management Specialist in the United States

400 postings read · sampled 2026-10-01 · source ats · 135 employers · largest 1% of it

What employers actually ask for

Credentials named in the 400 postings we read, ranked by how many mentioned each one.

What it costs

Exam and application fees plus typical self-study hours. Almost nobody needs every credential on this list — start with the top line.

Most-asked-for, on its own
$555PMP · ~200 hrs
asked for in 53 of 400 postings — 13%
If you earned all 1 of them
$555
fees checked 2026-08
200 hrs
200 hours — about 20 weeks at 10 hrs/wk

Not in the total: Bachelor's Degree — cost varies by institution.

Lower signal for this role

Credentials that barely appeared in this sample. That is not a claim they are worthless — plenty are valuable for a different job, a different city, or a promotion later. It is a claim that employers here mostly did not ask.

What the official taxonomy says

O*NET surveys people already doing this job. That describes who got hired over a long window, not what employers are asking for now — where it disagrees with the counts above, the counts are the more current answer.

Education reported by people doing this job
64%reported bachelor’s degree
  • Bachelor’s degree64%
  • Associate’s degree or other 2-year degree12%
  • High school diploma or equivalent6%

Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed. Most of these occupations require a four-year bachelor's degree, but some do not.

O*NET 13-1082.00 · pulled 2026-10-01 · percentages are of surveyed workers, each rounded separately, so they need not total 100

What it pays

BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. A different survey from the postings above, so the two do not share a sample.

$61,580
10th percentile
$102,320
median
$167,970
90th percentile

Every credential above costs $555 — about 1 day's pay at the median.

Who was hiring

Employers with at least one matching posting in this sample.

Anthropic · Applied Intuition · BAYADA Home Health Care · Bosch · Cogent Talent Solutions · Databricks · Datadog · Energy Project Solutions · Etched · Figma · Harvey · Latitude Inc · Lucid Motors · MongoDB · Nuro · OpenAI · Pinterest · Redwood Materials · Relativity Space · Rocket Lab · Samsara · Saronic · Scale AI · Scout Motors · Skydio · Stripe · Success Academy Charter Schools · Ursa Major Technologies · Verkada · Zoox · 360 IT Professionals · Agility Robotics · Anduril Industries · Artech Information System · Ask IT Consulting · Chandos · City of New York · Coinbase · Collabera · Deegit Inc · GitLab · Idealforce LLC · Infojini Inc · Integrated Resources Inc · Intuitive Surgical · Klaviyo · Lyft · Notion · Oura · Sonsoft Inc · SpaceX · Stem Xpert · System Canada Technologies · Tomra · USM · vTech Solution · Walmart · Antora Energy · Astranis · Baseten · C3EL · Discord · Duolingo · Everlaw · Fivetran · Harbinger Motors · Included Health · IonQ · Mercor · Motive · NielsenIQ · PSI CRO · Reddit · Spring Health · Toast · Wiz · Affirm · Asana · Betterment · Blink Health · Budderfly · Cursor · DeAngelo Contracting Services · Divergent Technologies · DN Tanks (DN LLC) · Elastic · Epirus · Ethos Life · Gusto · INC Research · Mercury · Modern Health · Monzo · Robinhood · Rocket Money · SBT Global · Skild AI · Skyline Construction · SpawGlass · Steel Fabricators LLC · Suno · Zip · Advanced Technology Group · Apptronik · BDA · Candidate Staff · Cloudflare · Crestwood Behavioral Health · Decagon · Dropbox · Flexport · Formic · Headway · Hinge Health · Hippo Insurance · Home Chef · Instacart · Kodiak Robotics · Luminis Health · McWane Inc · Mental Health Center of Denver · Otterbein SeniorLife · Peloton · Perplexity · Physical Intelligence · PROCON · Qualdoc · Ramp · Roblox · Sierra · SoFi · Sun Technologies Inc · The Mural Group · Upgrade · Zinnia

Next

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