How to Excel in an Engineering Project Manager Career Path
Are you a detail-oriented engineer who has strong leadership skills and management capabilities? An engineering project manager career path may be for you.
Unlike engineering managers, engineering project managers get to enjoy the excitement and challenges of new work all the time. As the job title suggests, an engineering project manager is a project-based career. You’ll be able to pursue various projects, from building houses to renovating buildings. Every project will promise something different where you can exercise your engineering creativity to its maximum capacity. And, unlike an engineering project engineer, a project manager will be the one leading the team.
Here’s a quick look at what an engineering project manager does:
- Plans overall project management
- Directs all project engineers and drafters
- Manages the overall development and implementation of engineering projects
- Evaluates complex designs
- Oversees construction and safety protocols
You can apply your skills in engineering project management to any engineering specialisation. As Singapore steadily recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic, the engineering industry has begun to gain its bearings. The country projects the construction sector to grow between S$23 billion to S$28 billion in 2021 alone. Some of Singapore’s engineering sectors, like the precision engineering sector, have managed to withstand the negative effects of the pandemic and find growth and opportunity in this time of crisis.
Engineering is a relatively stable industry for professionals. And for newly licensed engineers, getting onto the engineering project manager career path might be your way to success.
Salary Range
Becoming an engineer can be a lengthy and costly process, but it’s well worth the effort. Entry-level engineers earn an average of S$2,727 per month or S$32,721 per year.
Moving up the ladder, junior executives experience a notable pay increase as the average salary of engineers of all specialisations is S$3,468 per month or S$41,616 per year. Meanwhile, senior executives can expect an average salary of S$4,763 per month or S$57,159 per year.
Mid to senior-level management, such as managers, receives an average of S$6,550 per month or S$78,597 per year. Senior managers, on the other hand, can earn the most — they have an average salary of S$9,713 per month or S$116,552 per year.
According to the JobStreet Salary Report 2020, these are the average monthly and annual salaries of entry-level positions in nine engineering specialisations: chemical, civil/construction/structural, electrical, electronics/communications, environmental/health/safety, industrial, mechanical/automotive, oil/gas, and others.
What is the career path of an engineering project manager?
Based on Singapore’s SkillsFuture career map for professionals in engineering services, there are six career paths for new professionals in the engineering industry: operations and maintenance, engineering construction and commissioning, engineering design, engineering procurement, project financing, and project development.
Engineering project managers can exist in either of these professional channels, but we will focus on Singapore’s project development career track.
Here are the jobs and levels all aspiring engineering project managers must go through:
Junior Level (1-3 years of experience)
- Assistant Engineer/Officer (Project Development)
- Engineer (Project Development)
Mid Level (4-8 years of experience)
- Assistant Manager/Senior Engineer (Project Development)
- Manager (Project Development)
Senior Level (8 years of experience or more)
- Director (Engineering)
- General Manager / Chief Executive Officer
What requirements do you need to become an engineering project manager?
You’ll need two requirements to pursue your engineer project manager career path. First, you need to become a Professional Engineer by applying through Singapore’s Professional Engineers Board. To be eligible for application, you must be a graduate with a degree in engineering from one of the schools or courses mentioned in the Professional Engineers Act.
After this, you must take the Fundamentals of Engineering Examination and the Practice of Professional Engineering Examination (or the oral examination if the applicant is experienced or previously registered). You are also required to sit through a thorough interview. Once you’ve passed all of these steps, you can finally become a Professional Engineer and obtain a Practising Certificate.
However, after earning an engineering practising certificate, you must also obtain a Professional Management Professional (PMP) certificate. The PMP is the gold standard for project managers across all industries. However, some institutions still offer courses and certifications for engineering project management, such as the TEG International College and the Institution of Engineers.
Overall, the minimum requirements will be 1) a professional engineering license and 2) a project management professional certificate or a certificate for engineering project management.
Technical skills
In an industry as technical as the engineering industry, there will be plenty of hard skills required for this role. From the complicated formulas in engineering to the skills necessary in project management, an engineering project manager must be talented, hardworking, and knowledgeable in their role.
Here are some of the technical skills they will need:
- Mastery of Workplace Safety and Health (WSH) policies
- Techniques of work estimating
- Methods of activity planning
- Principles of basic project management
- Experty use of work breakdown structure
- Project management skills
- Budgeting and financial planning
- Risk analysis techniques
- Risk mitigation techniques
- Strategic alignment
Other skills
Aside from these technical skills, an engineering project manager will need to be extremely organised, detail-oriented, a firm decision-maker, with excellent communication skills and leadership traits.
Leadership
Engineering project managers will be leading a small team of engineers to complete a contract, thus strong leadership skills are essential. The project manager is the captain of the ship, and they will set the tone for the entire project.
Communication Skills
As the leader, a project manager will need to exhibit a mastery of communication skills, so you can convey complicated ideas, structures, breakdowns, and policies to a team of people. You will also communicate with people outside your team to complete the project, such as architects, administrators, and accountants.
Detail-oriented
Engineering projects can be overwhelming, so it’s easy to oversee details. However, a strong wind can make a house of cards fall. An engineering project manager must be extremely detail-oriented, from the blueprints to the budget.
Extremely Organised
As we mentioned, a project manager must be detail-oriented. This skill will need to come hand-in-hand with advanced organisation skills. You’ll be keeping a lot of information in your head and plenty of paperwork will be waiting on your desk. A manager needs to stay on top of every situation, so organisation skills are a must.
Decision-making and problem-solving
Challenges, hiccups, and bumps in the road are inevitable, so a project manager must know how to think fast, come up with solutions, and have the will (and expertise) to carry them through.
Educational background
The only educational requirement you will need to be a practising engineering project manager is a degree in engineering. It will be essential to getting your professional engineering certificate and project management professional certificate.
But to qualify for a professional engineering certificate, you must graduate from an engineering course accredited by the Institution of Engineers in Singapore. Almost every engineering course in the country has been accredited by the IES, but you can also click here to check if your course and college are on the list.
Graduates from international degree programmes in Canada, China, et cetera mentioned in the Professional Engineer Act are also eligible for this career path.
Opportunities for continuous education
Singapore’s SkillsFuture has compiled plenty of continuous education opportunities for engineering project managers. These include programmes on supervising work improvement processes from institutions like Kaplan International, SIA Engineering Company, SSA Academy, and more. You can also take courses on using systems thinking in problem-solving and decision-making at Service Quality Group and SSA Consulting.
Singapore’s My SkillsFuture also has a myriad of courses for engineering project management, including some from the National University of Singapore and Temasek Polytechnic. JobStreet’s partnership with FutureLearn also gives every jobseeker a chance to upgrade their career development and management skills for free.
How to write an engineering project manager resume?
Grab the hiring manager’s attention with a succinct and compelling introduction. Make sure to give them no reason to doubt your skills for the job by crafting a stellar resume.
Download this Engineering Project Manager resume HERE.
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