PEOPLE · providing a broader insight into the current marketplace. At 65%, PPM Practitioners...

www.arraspeople.co.ukArras People 2014

Issued September 2014

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We are consistently asked by PPMPractitioners for advice about whichlearning path they should adopt to attain the best opportunities and of course the best compensation for their efforts. Like many of the questions in the field of PPM, the answer always includes

“well, that depends….”.

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As part of the Arras People PMBR (Project Management Benchmark Report) we track the take up of accreditationsby the UK project management community. In this reportwe have taken a deeper look at the 2014 PMBR data, providing a broader insight into the current marketplace.

At 65%, PPM Practitionersfollowing the accreditation route havethe highest percentage

earnings

PMI


ere at Arras People we are consistently asked by PPM Practitioners for advice about which learning path they should adopt to attain the best opportunities and of course the best compensation for their efforts.

H

Like many of the questions in the field of PPM, the answer always includes“well, that depends….”.

The results from the survey data bear this out when we look at earnings forboth employees and contractors as we can see in the following graphs.

For the purpose of this review we decided to group the “Common Accreditations” by accrediting organisation as each has a learning path which contains a selection of accreditations.

For PPM Practitioners who are employed the graph above delivers a number of very clear messages;

At 65%, PPM Practitioners following the PMI accreditation route have the highest percentage earning more than the median £40K to £50K set by practitioners adopting the AXELOS path +22%. At 53%, PPM Practitioners with No accreditations have the second highest percentage earning more than the median £40K to £50K set by practitioners adopting the AXELOS path +9%. At 47%, PPM Practitioners following the APM accreditation route have the lowest percentage earning more than the median £40K to £50K set by practitioners adopting the AXELOS path +3%.

In terms of observations, the higher salaries attributed to PMI are not a surprise; many organisations who adopt the PMI approach are global and Blue Chip and thus generally have a higher level of remuneration for experienced PPM Practitioners who are delivering their programmes and projects.

The remuneration pattern for those with No accreditation supports the notion that we should never “confuse qualifications with competence” as ultimately organisations want their programmes and projects delivered successfully.

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In terms of observations, the remuneration pattern for those with No accreditation once again supports the notion that we should never “confuse qualifications with competence”. This is an even stronger argument when framed by contractors earning £500+ per day, as they live and die on their ability to secure their next contract. One can only assume that organisations are happy to pay these day rates because they are seeing results delivered.

The APM result is interesting as £500 per day appears to be some sort of glass ceiling for PPMpractitioners adopting this path. The reasons areunclear, though it may be that they lack recognisedaccreditations for senior PPM Practitioners at the Programme and Portfolio levels?

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or PPM Practitioners who are contracting the graph above delivers a number of very clear messages;

At 35%, PPM Practitioners with No accreditations have the highest percentage earning more than the median £400 to £500 per day set by practitioners adopting the AXELOS path +3%. At 33%, PPM Practitioners following the PMI accreditation route have the second highest percentage earning more than the median £400 to £500 per day set by practitioners adopting the AXELOS path +1%. At 19%, PPM Practitioners following the APM accreditation route have the lowest percentage earning more than the median £400 to £500 per day set by practitioners adopting the AXELOS path -15%.


We have been told by many practitioners and organisations over the last few years that “Agile is the future” and “the guarantee of project success”. So this year we asked practitioners about their take up of Agile accreditations to see how much traction and investment there has been in this methodology. Included in the list were “scrum” accreditations to try and build a wider picture, though of course some practitioners would argue that these are not really PPM roles.

The take up of the listed Agile accreditations is still relatively lowat 6.2% of our respondents, a figure which is even lower if we exclude the Scrum elements.

This low take up, compared to the noise being created leaves us wondering what is really happening in this space.

As a philosophy that requires wholesale change in the way an organisation approaches its delivery of projects we would have expected to see higher numbers of trained PPM practitioners.

The concern would be that we have individuals championing the Agile agenda as a bottom-up approach without the commitment of the organisation to investment in training; a potential recipe for disaster?

Agile

arrasPEOPLE www.arraspeople.co.uk~Agile

When we look at the distribution of PPM practitioners by sector, traditional heavy industries such as Rail and Construction returned no results, which was no real surprise. However the fact that Central Government came out with the highest numbers, over and above those working in IT Products and Services was.

At Arras People we are seeing an increasing number of roles in Central Government asking for Agile experience and accreditation as they look to move away from traditional PRINCE based waterfall methods for some of their projects.

GDS (Government Digital Services) are pushing Agile and appear to have an agile approach to its interpretation as “there is no one way of doing it”.

Moving forward this could be an issue as PPM Practitioners are grouped as Agile delivery practitioners with no explicit definition around the training that should be undertaken and methods that should be adopted. A philosophy of “real learning comes from doing” is admirable, but can an organ such as Central Government deliver when the approach appears to be so open to personal interpretation?

https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/agile/training-and-learning.html#agile-delivery-practitioner


We firstly asked respondent to identify if they held what we see as the more common accreditations offered by the PMI (Project Management Institute), APM (Association for Project Management), and AXELOS who took over the portfolio previously managed by OGC and the Cabinet Office.

As we can see in the table below, 85% of the PMBR respondents indicated that they have at least one of the listed common accreditations, though we are still seeing a significant number of PPM practitioners who do not hold any at 15%.

The AXELOS portfolio still holds the favourite with PRINCE2 retaining its place as the most popular at 69.3% and Managing Successful Programmes (MSP) coming in second with 24.4%.

The third most popular project management accreditation in the common list is the APMP from the APM which at 23.2% is just one third of the number recorded PRINCE2.

Across the sectors, we can see that accreditation take up is strongest amongstthose working in the Public sector where just 9.3% of respondents indicated that they have none of these common accreditations. Just under 80% have PRINCE2 and 35% MSP, both considerably over the average and in turn significantly higher than their peers operating in the Private sector at +13.6% and +13.2% respectively.

#1Popularity

Great figures for the training companies and those with afinger in the accreditation pie,but is it time to start asking some questions about the ROI (Return on Investment) that this spend on “best practice” is producing?

When we look across the Employee/Contractor results

we once again see differences inthe PRINCE2 / MSP take up with slightly higher take up amongst the contractors at +3.6% and +2.5%respectively. Considering this is coming from self-funding this eithershows an admirable commitment toCPD (Continued Professional Development) from the contractor group or reflects the impression that these products are seen as mandatory (if in name only) by many people charged with the responsibility for hiring PPM practitioners.

A final observation from the common accreditations table relatesto the APM Accreditations IC and APMP. The data suggests that the APM is gaining some level of foothold in the Public sector and elements of the Private sector as thenumber of practitioners holding the IC / APM accreditations is showing an increase. However, when we look at the differences across Contractorsand Employees at -13% it would suggest that is “internal” and at this point has low traction amongst the

contractor group. It will be interesting to track if market recognition of APM and theiraccreditations increases over the coming years and in turn this converts to higher numbers of contractors feeling that they “need” these accreditations if they are to secure new assignments.

New for 2014 we have created the table which shows the “basket” of accreditationsthat are held by the PPM Practitioners whoparticipated in the 2014 PMBR.

Excluding the respondents who have noneof the listed accreditations, reading acrossthe rows, we see that 81% have PRINCE2.When we look at the respondents who have PRINCE2 we can see that of these practitioners 20% also hold the APM APMPaccreditation and 7% have the PMI’s PMP.

What we do not see in the table is any agingor underlying reasons for PPM practitioners holding multiple accreditation across the PMI, APM and AXELOS portfolios. There are of course some market led reasons such as the low recognition amongst many recruiters of the PMI and APM accreditations, so maybe we can explore this further in the next Arras People PMBR.


The PPM world is full of accreditations; it seems that the number is for ever onthe increase as organisations look to segment what we do, put a new label on in and then create a revenue stream. So our next list is in no way exhaustive but represents some of the more established accreditations that are availableto PPM practitioners.

As anticipated the take up of the second list of accreditations was lower than those recorded against the common accreditations. Overall 63.3% of respondents had none, with a variation of +1.9% for Employees and -3.3% for PPM practitioners who operate as contractors. We again saw a variance between Public and Private sector with +5.4% and -1.3% respectively.

The highest** take-up being another AXELOS offering of ITIL with 15.8% of respondents and a delta of 6.4% between contractors and employees whichsuggests that there is a demand for this qualification when recruiting contractors.

Six Sigma also shows a significant take up at 10.8%, though interestingly thereis no significant delta between any of the cuts at sector of operating type levels.

Other offerings around niche areas such as risk, management of value and management of portfolios show lower levels of take up. It can be seen once again that Public sector take up of these products is higher than that in the Private sector which raises the question of ROI as discussed above.

OtherOptions

** We have included the PRINCE2 Professional figures as returned by the respondents but we believe that the figures are overstated.We have not been able to discover the true take up of this accreditation, though ourown database would suggestthat this is in single figures asa percentage. We believe that

there is market confusion where many practitioners are adding the word “Professional” to their PRINCE2accreditation in a form of self enhancement, being unaware that the accreditation level actually exists. This is a similar situation to that where many practitioners believe they are members of the APM because their PRINCE2 accreditationwas managed by the APM-Group, which of course is a totally separateorganisation.

The table to the left shows the “extended basket” of accreditations that are held by the PPM Practitioners who participated in the2014 PMBR. This shows the take upof the “other” accreditations by the groups identified in the “common accreditations” review above. Againreading across the table we can seethe take-up by individual groupings such as those who have PRINCE2 where ITIL appears as a firm favourite.


NoQualifications A recurring question asked in the Arras People PMBR relates to the desire for PPM to be recognised as a Profession. Whilst we continue to see a year on year reduction in the number of PPM Practitioners who do not have any PPM related accreditation, the number is still too high for professional status and recognition.

Perhaps the telling �gures in the table below; at 14.3%, there are twice as many PPMpractitioners in the Private sector operating without any PPM accreditation and at thesame time we see 15.1% of PPM Contractors operating without any recognised PPM accreditation. That may be seen as a message that the ROI does not justify the expenditure. Not only that, organisations whilst investing on their employees are more than happy to bring in generally expensive, unaccredited contractors to help deliver their programmes and projects.

In the 2007 PMBR 71% of our respondents felt that there were too many accreditationbodies associated with PPM and 73% agreed that a single competency standard would be a good idea. Over the proceeding seven years the landscape has becomemore confused as more and more accreditations become available to feed the trainingsector which grew o� the back of the original Prince o�ering.

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Arras People are the UK’s leading specialists inproject management recruitment and careers.

Since 2002 we’ve been providing recruitment services across all the main industry sectors andbusiness domains in the UK.

We provide permanent, contract and �xed termproject practitioners - including programme, portfolio and business analysis.

We also provide independent advice based onyears of research in areas such as market rates, career planning and 1-2-1 career sessions.

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