The Most In-Demand Project Management Skills For Your Resume (New Data)

Here are the top skills featured on real project manager job ads:

What are project management skills?

Project managers are responsible for helping companies guide a project from planning to execution. They need to be able to assess risks, manage client expectations, and ensure team members can reach their full potential.

To be able to handle such diverse responsibilities, project managers require a good balance of hard and soft skills.

If you’re not sure what skills to include on your resume, here are the 15 most in-demand project management skills employers are looking for:

The most important soft skills for project managers

Even if you have the technical skills required to become an accomplished project manager, if you can’t communicate effectively or stay organized, you’ll struggle to keep up with the demands of the job.

Here are eight examples of soft skills that would be great to highlight when writing a project manager resume:

1. Communication skills

Strong communication skills are the foundation of effective project management. As a project manager, you’re constantly relaying information between stakeholders, team members, and clients.

Employers want to see that you can share updates clearly across different channels (email, meetings, reports), listen actively to understand team concerns and client needs, and facilitate meetings that keep projects moving forward.

How to highlight communication skills on your resume:

• Clearly and concisely conveyed complex technical information to non-technical stakeholders, resulting in improved understanding and alignment

2. Interpersonal skills

Project managers don’t just manage tasks, they manage people. Interpersonal skills are the people skills that help you build trust, foster collaboration, and lead with empathy.

Strong interpersonal skills allow you to build rapport with team members, clients, and stakeholders and create a positive, productive work environment.

How to highlight interpersonal skills on your resume:

• Built strong working relationships with colleagues and stakeholders

3. Management skills

At the core of project management is, well, management. This means overseeing timelines, tasks, resources, and people to make sure everything stays on track. Strong management skills show employers that you can keep projects moving forward, even when things get complex.

How to highlight management skills on your resume:

• Led and motivated a team of 12 employees to exceed performance targets

4. Collaboration skills

Great project managers know how to bring people together. Collaboration skills help you align teams, bridge departments, and keep everyone moving toward the same goal, even when there are competing priorities.

How to highlight collaboration skills on your resume:

• Partnered with three other departments to streamline the onboarding process for new clients, reducing the average onboarding time by 15%

5. Organizational skills

Project managers juggle a lot: deadlines, deliverables, budgets, and team schedules. Strong organizational skills are what keep it all from falling apart. They help you prioritize tasks, manage workflows, and make sure every moving part stays on track.

How to highlight organizational skills on your resume:

• Developed and maintained detailed project plans, timelines, and resource allocation, ensuring on-time and within-budget project completion

6. Customer service

Project managers aren’t just working behind the scenes — they’re often the face of a project for clients, stakeholders, or end users. That’s where customer service skills come in.

These skills help you manage expectations, communicate clearly, and deliver a smooth experience from start to finish.

How to highlight customer service skills on your resume:

• Served as the primary point of contact for clients addressing inquiries and providing regular project updates

7. Time management

Time management skills involve your ability to plan and prioritize tasks around a clear timeframe. This is essential for project managers because you’ll constantly be keeping track of many moving parts and having to meet tight deadlines.

How to highlight time management skills on your resume:

• Developed and adhered to detailed project timelines using Gantt charts, tracking progress against over 50 key milestones per project with a 95% on-time completion rate

Top technical project management skills

Here are the top technical skills employers are looking for when hiring project managers — based on data from real job listings.

1. Project planning

Project planning is the backbone of successful project execution. It involves breaking down a project into clear phases, defining goals, setting deadlines, and outlining how resources will be used.

Your resume should show that you can:

• Define scope, objectives, and deliverables
• Build detailed timelines and work breakdown structures
• Allocate resources efficiently across teams and task
• Set realistic milestones and anticipate potential roadblocks

2. Strategic planning

Strategic planning goes beyond day-to-day project tasks. It’s about aligning your projects with greater business goals. As a project manager, this skill shows that you understand how each project fits into the bigger picture, not just how to execute it.

3. Project monitoring and reporting

In addition to planning, project managers also need to track and report progress. Project monitoring and reporting skills show that you can keep stakeholders informed, spot issues early, and guide the project toward successful delivery.

This includes:

• Tracking key performance indicators and project milestones
• Using dashboards or reporting tools (like Microsoft Project, Jira, or Asana)
• Identifying risks or delays and flagging them early
• Providing clear, actionable updates to stakeholders and leadership

4. Microsoft Office

It may sound basic, but Microsoft Office remains one of the most essential technical tools in a project manager’s toolkit. From planning timelines to reporting results, Office apps help you communicate, organize, and execute projects efficiently.

5. Analytical skills

Analytical skills help you turn data into decisions. Whether you’re evaluating performance metrics, identifying bottlenecks, or forecasting risks, this skill set allows you to assess what’s working and what needs to change.

6. Project management software

Knowing how to use project management software is essential for staying organized, collaborating with teams, and keeping projects on track. Employers expect PMs to be fluent in the tools that power modern workflows.

Popular platforms include:

• Asana
• Trello
• Jira
• Smartsheet
• Microsoft Project

7. Data analysis

Data analysis goes hand-in-hand with decision-making in project management. It’s not just about collecting numbers, it’s about interpreting them to improve performance, reduce risks, and drive smarter project outcomes.

8. CAD software

For project managers in technical fields like construction, architecture, manufacturing, or engineering, proficiency in CAD (Computer-Aided Design) software is a valuable asset. It allows you to read, review, and collaborate on technical drawings, models, and plans.

Common CAD tools include:

• AutoCAD
• SolidWorks
• Revit
• SketchUp

How to feature project management skills on your resume

It’s not just what skills you have, it’s how you present them. Here’s how to effectively highlight your project management skills on resume:

List them in your skills section

Use your skills section to showcase your most relevant hard skills. Stick to concise, specific terms like:

• Cost management
• Agile methodologies
• Risk assessment
• Microsoft Project
• Jira
• Budget forecasting

Avoid listing soft skills in your skills section. Save those for your summary and work experience sections where you can show them in action.

Mention them in your resume summary

Your resume summary is a great place to spotlight your top project management strengths and set the tone for the rest of your application. Tailor this to the role by pulling in the key project management skills from the job description.

For example:

Certified Project Manager with 6+ years of experience leading cross-functional teams, managing multimillion-dollar budgets, and delivering complex IT projects on time and under budget.

Demonstrate how you used them in your work experience section

Your work experience section is where you can show how you’ve used your skills to deliver results. For example:

• Led project planning and execution for a $1.2M software rollout, delivering two weeks ahead of schedule
• Monitored KPIs using dashboards in Smartsheet, improving on-time delivery by 18%
• Collaborated with vendors and engineering teams to align technical specs using AutoCAD and Revit

How to improve your project management skills

When it comes to improving your soft skills as a project manager, the best thing you can do is to be attentive to the feedback you get from your team.

Ask each team member how you can better support them during future projects, and adapt your management style based on their responses. Soft skills aren’t typically skills that can be taught in a classroom, you need to continually practice them on your own to improve.

As for developing your technical project manager skills, you’ve got a few different options:

• Get certified: The Project Management Institute issues several different certifications for project managers, including PMP (Project Management Professional), PMI-RMP (PMI Risk Management Professional) and DASM (Disciplined Agile Management Professional).
• Get a degree: Getting a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree is a good first step if you’re serious about a career in project management.
• Familiarize yourself with PM software: There are numerous project management software options out there. Do some research, try them out and learn what’ll work best for you and your team.
• Attend a workshop: Seek out in-person or online project management workshops that focus on a particular technical skill that you’d like to develop further.

Additional skills for a project manager

Here are more skills to add to your project manager resume:

• Leadership skills
• Critical thinking skills
• Computer skills
• People skills
• Problem solving skills
• Teamwork skills
• Multitasking skills
• Conceptual skills