Business and finance

Project Management Specialist in the United States

279 postings read · sampled 2026-08-02 · source ats

What employers actually ask for

Credentials named in the 279 postings we read, ranked by how many mentioned each one.

PMPProject Management Institute
10%
29 of 279 postings$555 exam · fee checked 2026-08~200 hrs prepProject Management Institute →
Bachelor's DegreeAccredited institution
9%
26 of 279 postingsAccredited institution →

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 29 of 279 postings — 10%

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.

CAPMProject Management Institute
1%
2 of 279 postings$300 exam · fee checked 2026-08~100 hrs prepProject Management Institute →
CIPP/USIAPP
0%
1 of 279 postings$550 exam · fee checked 2026-08~80 hrs prepIAPP →
OSHA 30-Hour ConstructionOSHA Training Institute
0%
1 of 279 postings$180 exam · fee checked 2026-08~30 hrs prepOSHA Training Institute →
Salesforce Certified AdministratorSalesforce
0%
1 of 279 postings$200 exam · fee checked 2026-08~100 hrs prepSalesforce →
Secret Security ClearanceU.S. Government (DCSA)
1%
3 of 279 postingsU.S. Government (DCSA) →
TS/SCIU.S. Government (DCSA)
2%
6 of 279 postingsU.S. Government (DCSA) →
Master's DegreeAccredited institution
3%
8 of 279 postingsAccredited institution →

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.

OpenAI · Stripe · Anthropic · Databricks · Scale AI · Applied Intuition · Datadog · Oura · Samsara · Figma · Harvey · Lyft · Pinterest · Asana · Coinbase · MongoDB · Motive · Verkada · Nuro · Twilio · Cloudflare · Cursor · Elastic · GitLab · Klaviyo · Notion · Reddit · Redwood Materials · SoFi · Affirm · Airtable · Cribl · Duolingo · Instacart · Komodo Health · Mercor · Modern Health · Peloton · Postman · Robinhood · Roblox · Sierra · Zip · 1X · Baseten · Betterment · Chime · Discord · Dropbox · Gusto · Mercury · Monzo · Perplexity · Ramp · Rocket Money · Suno · Turing · Upgrade