Project Manager CV Example (UK)

A Project Manager CV in the UK is judged on the projects themselves: the budget, the team, the deadline and what happened when the plan met reality. Sponsors and PMO leads scan for PRINCE2 or an APM qualification, for the sector (IT, construction, public sector, financial services) and for a recovered project, because every project manager has delivered one on time and the interesting question is what you did when one was not.

The Sample CV below is for a PRINCE2 Practitioner with seven years delivering IT and property projects for a Birmingham building society and a fit-out contractor. The bullets lead with scope and money in pounds, then the method (a phased rollout, a recovery plan, a supplier renegotiation) that produced the result.

Tailor it for each vacancy. An IT role wants system rollouts and supplier management; a construction role wants the programme, subcontractors and CDM; a public sector role wants governance, benefits and a business case. The US counterpart of this page is the project manager resume example, written for American employers around the PMP; a UK CV leads with PRINCE2 or the APM and runs to two sides. The Civic template keeps a public sector CV plain for application portals.

Updated . The person and employers in this Sample CV are fictional. Written for applicants in the UK; the page for applicants in the US is the project manager resume example.

Project Manager sample CV

Drawn at A4 proportions, the paper a UK CV is printed on.

Nadia Brierley

Project Manager, PRINCE2 Practitioner, APM PMQ

Birmingham, B3nadia.brierley@example.com07700 900541

Summary

PRINCE2 Practitioner with seven years delivering IT and property projects worth up to £4.5 million for a building society and a commercial fit-out contractor. Took over a branch technology refresh four months late and finished it three weeks early and under budget, and runs every project with a maintained RAID log, a weekly sponsor note and no surprises at the board. Equally at home with a waterfall programme and an agile delivery team.

Experience

Project Manager, Heartlands Mutual Building Society

– Present

Birmingham

  • Delivered the £4.5 million branch technology refresh across 36 branches, taking it over four months behind and finishing three weeks early and under the approved budget.
  • Ran the core banking supplier selection with procurement, IT and operations, scoring five bids against 110 requirements and taking the recommendation through the executive committee.
  • Moved 700 staff to a new telephony and video platform over six weekends, with a service desk plan that kept calls within the normal weekly volume.
  • Built the project intake and highlight report standard now used across the change portfolio, replacing ad hoc email updates to sponsors.
Assistant Project Manager, Kingsbury Fit-Out Ltd

–

Solihull

  • Coordinated office and healthcare fit-out projects between £200,000 and £1.8 million, owning the programme, the subcontractor schedule and the client reporting.
  • Tracked variations and budgets in Procore and recovered £140,000 in approved but unbilled client changes across the year.
  • Chaired weekly site meetings and walked the site with the principal contractor under CDM 2015; the team finished its projects with no RIDDOR-reportable injury.

Education

BSc (Hons) Business Management, 2:1

Arden Vale University, Coventry

Placement year with a housing association's development team.

Skills

  • Project planning and scheduling
  • Budget and cost control
  • RAID logs and risk management
  • Supplier and contract management
  • Stakeholder and sponsor reporting
  • Microsoft Project
  • Jira and Confluence
  • Procore
  • PRINCE2 and agile delivery
  • Change control
  • Benefits realisation

Certifications

  • PRINCE2 Practitioner, AXELOS,
  • APM Project Management Qualification (PMQ), Association for Project Management,

Start yours from this example

Opens this sample in the editor, in one of the templates below. Swap in your details, then tailor it to each vacancy in about two minutes.

Use this example

How a UK CV differs

A UK Project Manager CV leads with PRINCE2 and the APM where the American version leads with the PMP. PRINCE2 Practitioner is the qualification most UK adverts name, the APM PMQ or ChPP sits above it, and the PMP is known but rarely required outside multinationals. Public sector and NHS vacancies ask for governance, benefits and a business case, construction asks for CDM 2015 and the programme, and financial services asks for change control under the regulator. The CV runs to two sides of A4, no photo, with budgets in pounds and projects named by sector. Many public bodies and large employers still use an application form, so write bullets in complete sentences that can be pasted into it.

For a project manager in the UK

  1. PRINCE2 and APM, not PMP

    Put PRINCE2 Practitioner or the APM PMQ after your name and in a qualifications section with the year. Mention the PMP only if you hold it; a UK PMO will not ask for it.

  2. Budgets in pounds, projects by sector

    Give each project's value in pounds and name the sector. A £4 million IT rollout for a building society and a £1 million fit-out for a hospital are different jobs, and the reader needs to place you.

  3. Governance words that match the employer

    Public bodies want business cases, benefits and gateway reviews; construction wants CDM, the programme and principal contractor duties; banks want change control and audit. Use the words the advert uses.

  4. Programme, not program

    A programme is a group of projects; a program is software. The spelling tells a UK reader whether you know the difference.

  5. Referees and the application form

    Referees available on request is enough on the CV. Councils, the NHS and universities will ask for two on an application form and for a supporting statement, so keep your bullets in whole sentences.

Every CV in the UK

A4 paper
Set the page to A4, 210 by 297 millimetres. A Letter-sized PDF prints with odd margins on A4 and reads as imported from the US.
Two pages is normal
Most UK CVs run to two pages. One page suits a first job; three is rare and only for senior roles with a lot to show.
No photo, no date of birth
UK employers do not expect a photo, a date of birth, marital status or nationality on a CV, and most prefer not to see them.
Dates as DD/MM/YYYY
Day first where a full date appears, and month and year for each role: "Mar 2022 – Present". Never the US month-first order.
British English
Organise, programme, centre, licence, specialise. A CV in American spelling reads as written for somewhere else.
Town and postcode area, not a street address
A line such as "Manchester, M4" is enough. A full postal address, and the US-style "City, ST 12345" line, are not expected.

More on applying in the UK, with every CV example for it, on the UK page.

Templates for the project manager CV

All templates

Every template exports on A4. The previews are drawn on Letter; the editor sets the page size when you export.

How the CV changes with experience

The same project manager CV, written at three levels: a profile and three bullets for each.

Entry level

Zero to two years, or a first post in the title

Project coordinator with two years supporting IT projects for a university, now studying for PRINCE2 Foundation. Organised, calm with deadlines and quick to turn a meeting into an action log.

  • Maintained the plan and action log for a laptop refresh across 30 departments.
  • Prepared the weekly highlight report for sponsors and flagged risks before they became delays.
  • Arranged supplier deliveries and room access for installation teams across two campuses.

Mid level

Three to seven years, owns a process or a workload

Project manager with five years delivering software and infrastructure projects on time for an NHS trust, used to governance and a packed change calendar.

  • Deliver four to six concurrent IT projects a year, each under £750,000.
  • Led the rollout of an e-rostering system to 18 wards with training for 450 staff.
  • Introduced a risk register the programme board reviews at every meeting.

Senior

Eight years or more, leads people, budgets or programmes

Senior project manager with twelve years leading multi-million-pound programmes and mentoring project managers inside a structured PMO.

  • Led a £15 million data centre consolidation across two sites with no unplanned outage.
  • Wrote the PMO's project standards and templates and trained forty project managers on them.
  • Mentor four project managers and review every business case above £1 million.

Skills to put on the project manager CV

Hard skills

Planning and scheduling
A realistic plan is the base of every project, and interviewers ask how you built one and what you did when it slipped.
Budget and cost control
Sponsors judge a project by the money, so the budget size and the variance belong in your bullets in pounds.
Risk and issue management
A maintained RAID log and a record of risks caught early show judgement, which is what a PMO lead is hiring for.
Supplier and contract management
Most UK projects depend on third parties, and managing them well protects both cost and programme.
Project tools such as Microsoft Project, Jira or Smartsheet
Adverts name one, and matching it helps the keyword match and tells the reader you can start without training.
PRINCE2, APM and agile methods
Most UK organisations run a mix, and showing both a structured method and agile delivery widens the roles you fit.
Sponsor and board reporting
Clear highlight reports build trust with senior managers and keep decisions moving at the pace the plan needs.

Soft skills

Leading without line authority
Project teams rarely report to you, so the results depend on influence, and interviewers want an example.
Communication
Most project problems are communication problems, and handling them calmly is the heart of the job.
Composure when the plan breaks
Deadlines move and priorities change, and a hiring manager wants someone who steadies the team rather than escalates every wobble.

Mistakes that cost project manager interviews

  1. No budgets, team sizes or dates

    Managed projects says nothing a PMO lead can place. Give the budget, the number of people or sites and the duration, so the reader knows your level without an interview.

  2. A CV of only smooth deliveries

    Hiring managers know every project goes wrong somewhere. A bullet about recovering a late or over-budget project shows more skill than four that went to plan.

  3. Letting the certificate carry the page

    PRINCE2 gets you through the filter. The interview is about your projects, so put the qualification in the headline and let the bullets prove you can run one.

  4. Describing meetings instead of outcomes

    Held weekly steering meetings is activity. Write what the meetings produced: decisions taken faster, risks closed, a go-live date kept.

  5. One CV for every sector

    IT, construction and public sector adverts use different governance language. Rewrite the profile and reorder the projects to match the sector in front of you.

Questions about the project manager CV

Do I need PRINCE2 to get a Project Manager job in the UK?

Not always, but most adverts ask for PRINCE2 Practitioner or an APM qualification. If you hold one, put it after your name; if you are studying, give the exam date.

Is the PMP worth listing on a UK CV?

Yes if you hold it, in the qualifications section alongside PRINCE2. Few UK employers ask for it, so it should not be the only qualification on the page.

How do I write project manager bullets?

Start with the scope (budget, team, sites), then what you did, then the result in time, money or quality. One bullet per major project reads better than a list of duties.

What should the profile at the top say?

Your years in the role, the kind and size of projects you run, your qualification and one result that proves it, such as a recovered project or a large rollout delivered on time.

How do I move from project coordinator to Project Manager?

Show the parts of projects you already owned: a workstream, a supplier, a budget line, a plan. Write them as results, and add PRINCE2 Foundation or the APM PFQ while you look.

How do I tailor a Project Manager CV for an application form?

Keep every bullet a complete sentence so it pastes cleanly into the supporting statement, and order them against the person specification. Pasting the advert into Resume Master rewrites the CV against it in about two minutes, which makes the form faster to fill.

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