Contracting as an IT project manager for the last two years has not been easy. Economic and political instability has caused hiring freezes and project delays. So, what does the market look like over the year ahead?
Director and Head of Contract Nicholas Hopkins of VIQU IT, a leading IT project management recruitment agency, writes that there are positives to draw on as we enter 2025.
Is the market getting better?
Time and again, my team and I speak with good IT project management professionals (particularly generalist IT project management contractors) who ask us the same questions: “Is the market getting better?” “Is hiring picking up with your clients?” “Are more of your clients expecting to kick off projects soon?”
Now, I’m always honest in that I cannot predict the volatility of the market because of other varying factors. Elections, the UK economy, the wider global economy… it’s difficult to know what macroeconomic factors could arise.
In the past couple of years, digital transformations have not continued at the pace we’d been expecting.
Understandably, many companies have been hunkering down to weather the ‘storm’, prioritising business sustainability over innovating within their digital landscape.
We have seen some projects started that were put off during the Covid pandemic, with businesses having no choice due to legacy / end of life technology. However, there certainly hasn’t been the appetite to roll out new technology that we experienced in the golden year of 2022.
I hope 2025 will be a very different year to 2024 for contractors in general. The US now has a new president. With the US economy being so closely linked with our own, we will soon be able to see if he has a stabilising or destabilising impact on the US economy.
From my perspective, we have had some early positive signs at VIQU IT that things are beginning to move in the right direction.
Digital transformation will not stop. The statistics are clear. It’s just the speed and ferocity at which it will occur that’s up for debate and how it will impact the market for IT project managers.
Is AI impacting project management?
Another factor to consider that could be both beneficial and detrimental for IT project managers…
We’ve heard A LOT about artificial intelligence (AI) over the past 18 months or so, and it’s a theme that IT project managers must be aware of by 2025.
As organisations become increasingly interested in automation and look to input AI into their operations, the role of project managers is shifting, with lots of tasks project managers used to do becoming automated.
Therefore, IT project managers need to become comfortable with the fact AI will support parts of their role – whether that’s scheduling, tracking progress or optimisation. However, AI cannot replace the human element of being a great IT project manager.
IT project management will simply evolve to incorporate AI to do the job better. Therefore, project managers must look to make themselves invaluable by understanding all processes on a deep level in order to tailor and integrate AI tools correctly.
It’s critical for project managers to be able to have the understanding to input the correct information into these new AI tools in order to ensure the output is right, creating efficiencies and accuracies.
Plugging these tools and agents into your project management approach is becoming the new norm, which is why upscaling your skills, particularly your ability to tailor projects is so key.
Are client expectations shifting?
IT project management contractors are rightly concerned about market conditions, but when I have such conversations, more often than not there are also questions like, “What can I do to stand out from other contractors?” and “What are clients looking that I could develop on?”.
Increasingly, I’m finding that organisations are no longer looking for IT project managers purely to manage projects and associated people and budgets.
You have to possess further skills and knowledge. In particular, I’m finding PowerBI toolsets and the ability to present effectively significantly more in-demand than 5 years ago.
Why? I believe it’s down to the fact that everything is more remote and cloud-based, meaning one must be able to demonstrate, manage and present things effectively, whether in-person or virtually.
Industry knowledge is crucial. While many project managers claim their skills are transferable across sectors, clients typically prefer those with proven experience in specific domains like digital or infrastructure.
It is generalist IT project managers that are particularly suffering in the current market. Specialising makes you more marketable, but that doesn’t mean you’re locked in.
I once worked with a contractor who had only managed development projects but wanted to transition into Cloud / Infrastructure. It took time, but we found the right business that valued his transferable skills. Sometimes, a sideways step—whether into a new industry or a different project focus—can be the best way to move forward in the long run.
Longevity is very important to businesses. Demonstrating expertise across the full project lifecycle, from concept phase to support/end phase, is the kind of experience that clients are liking and requesting more and more.
Finally, I’d say that increasingly clients want global experience from project managers who have worked with and managed global teams. With the changing ways businesses are operating, the world has opened up to being a 24/7 operations.
When coupled with hybrid / remote working, project managers must be able to work across the board and be comfortable facing certain challenges that having remote workforces with differing first languages and time zones can create.
So being able to demonstrate you can run project with these sorts of challenges is often now expected.
What can contractors do to put themselves in the best position possible?
With the sea of IT project management professionals left on the sidelines, it’s vital that you have the experience, knowledge and skills that suit your area of expertise.
So it will be heavily dependent on whether you’re working on digital or infrastructure projects, but these a few particulars that I think are important for project managers to consider depending on their niche:
- Infrastructure – ITIL environment experience
- Digital in public sector – government digital services certifications
- Development project managers – agile experience, ideally being agile scrum certified
- Energy sector specific – Lean Six Sigma is important
To conclude, in the current market it is generalist IT project managers who are struggling the most. Clients have expectations that PMs know the acronyms within their sector and that they can reference work from other similar businesses etc. So specialising is key. Your actions and future contracts you take should fully depend on what you’re looking to specialise in, so play to your strengths, get the right certifications and plan for the long term.
‘Inch wide mile deep’ should be your 2025 mantra.
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