Picture this, you complete your degree or maybe your certifications or whatever, and finally enter the real world: The world of jobs. It can feel like learning to swim in a swimming pool and then getting thrown into an ocean where you’re supposed to swim against endless waves.
You know that you’re not just going to jump straight into working at a billion-dollar company like NHS or Google (unless you’ve got some serious magic up your sleeve).
Instead, you’ll be starting at the bottom of the ladder: constant learning, supporting and building skills. Let me tell you, it’s gonna be very uncomfortable.
What exactly is a Hierarchy?
Hierarchy is not just understanding what’s next up the ladder. It’s
What’s the starting point?
Project Assistant/ Project Support Officer
This is where most people start their project management journey.
What should you do?
- ✔ Following up on tasks and deadlines
- ✔ Updating project plans when things change
- ✔ Scheduling meetings
- ✔ Learn tools like Jira and Trello
Skills essential for a Project assistant: Attention to detail, eagerness to learn, organisation
Why is this role important for starters?
Because this is the role that teaches exactly how projects actually work. Every behind the scene action.
This teaches individuals to notice patterns in projects, why some succeed, others wobble, and how teams actually work.
Junior/ Assistant Project Manager
In this role, you’re not just being the support person. You’re starting to own small projects or even lead parts that belong to a larger project.
What should you do?
- ✔ Lead full projects from the start to finish
- ✔ Balance scope, time, budget and quality
- ✔ Guide teams and manage stakeholders
- ✔ Keep updated with the progress
Essential skills for a Junior Project Manager: Communication, leaderships skills, adaptability, risk awareness.
Why is this role important in the hierarchy: You start building your leadership skills. This is where mistakes happen, where you find out the loopholes and which are valuable.
Project Manager
This is the core role when it comes to project management. It involves a lot of guidance and leadership.
Essential skills for a project manager: leadership, problem-solving, PRINCE2,negotiation.
Why is this role important?
This is the role that proves that you’re capable of handling a team successfully and delivering results independently.
Strong project managers become the backbone of the organisations. They’re the people who blow life into plans and strategies.
Senior Project Manager
You’ve handled multiple projects and earned your stars for a senior role. Now you’re trusted with larger projects with higher risks or more respected projects.
What should you do?
- ✔ Manage larger projects with multiple teams and stakeholders
- ✔ Balance scope, time, budget and quality
- ✔ Manage bigger budgets
- ✔ Mentor and train junior project managers
Essential skills for this role: Advanced leadership, risk management, effective conflict resolution
Why is this role important?
You’re not just leading projects, you’re guiding every project run in your organisation to success and drive in more income
Programme Manager
A programme manager doesn’t just manage a single project. They manage many projects under one.
For example: A bank launching a digital transformation programme might have these projects:
- ✔ Building the mobile app
- ✔ Upgrading cybersecurity
- ✔ Training new staff
Each project will have its own project manager, but the programme manager connects them all and making sure that the final result would drive in value to business.
Portfolio Manager
A programme manager focuses on a set of related projects, a portfolio manager manages all the programmes and projects in the organisation.
What should you do?
- ✔ Evaluate risks and profits in every programme and project
- ✔ Allocating resources
- ✔ Decide which projects are worth taking
Essential skills: Decision making, leadership, financial management
Project Director/ Head of Projects
This is the highest role in project management. As the project director, you will be responsible for the entire project management on the organisation.
Your responsibilities will be:
- ✔ Lead teams of managers(project, programme and portfolio managers)
- ✔ Represent the organisation
- ✔ Define methodologies, standard and governance framework
- ✔ Make calls on investments and risks
Essential skills for this role: Vision, leadership, mentorship, negotiation, strategic thinking and decision making.
What would help you climb the ladder?
Climbing up the project management ladder doesn’t just happen. It’s not just luck or the years in the field.
It’s about building the right mix of qualifications, experiences and the mindset to prepare and nail bigger responsibilities that come your way. It’s building up yourself layer by layer.
Here are a few things that would make a real difference.
- ⚙ Certifications These are your professional foundations. They open different doorways in the industry. These are a few highly recognised certificates in the industry in the UK
- ✔ PRINCE2
- ✔ PRINCE2Agile
- ✔ PMP
- ⚙ Experience Working in different sectors will broaden your perspective. It will equip you with the skills necessary for different kinds of projects across various industries
- ⚙ Networking and mentorship Project management is not an industry to work alone. It involves a lot of team work and constant interaction with different kinds of stakeholders and teammates. You will have different mentors and people to broaden your network.
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⚙
Resilience
Here’s a bitter truth. Every project manager fails sometimes. You will too. Timeline slips, budget exceeds, scope creeps,etc. What really matters is how you accept that and bounce back into your role. How you understand your mistake and learn to come back stronger. This is a key skill in a project manager.
Finally, the hierarchy in project management isn’t just titles and different job roles. It’s a journey. From the first role as a project assistant starting with nervousness to a senior role leading multiple teams and stakeholders to drive in more value to your businesses.
Something to walk away with: Remember, every mistake you make along the journey is an opportunity for you to learn. Every skill you build today will set the stage up for you to step in tomorrow.