There Are 25M New Global Project Management Jobs To Fill By 2030, PMI Is Closing The Gap

by Laurel Donnellan (originally published at Forbes.com)

From Trinidad To Oxford To PMI: David Cumberbatch On Building Careers That Last

David Cumberbatch grew up on a small island with, as he puts it, “a lot of big dreams.” Trinidad and Tobago sits just off the coast of Venezuela, and it gave him something that no future experience could manufacture: a family steeped in social impact. At 21, his grandfather became the youngest high school principal in Trinidad’s history, then went on to lead the country’s largest orphanage. “When we visited his home,” Cumberbatch told me, “he would tell all the stories about raising orphans and placing them. And a lot of them would still visit his home, even in his retirement, and talk about how much he influenced and shaped their lives.” Cumberbatch’s father was a pastor. His mother worked in the government.

That early education in purpose never left him. Today, Cumberbatch is the Regional Managing Director for North America at the Project Management Institute (PMI)—the world’s leading professional association for project professionals, with over 800,000 members worldwide and 1.7 million certified professionals. He oversees 150 chapters across the U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean, and he’s two months into a role he describes as part executive, part diplomat, and part road warrior. When I spoke with him, he was in Portland, Oregon, for an all-hands gathering of 270 colleagues from 30 countries—and headed to New York City on a red-eye that evening to meet with the local PMI chapter to celebrate its 40th anniversary. 

He and his team focused on training 25 million new project professionals who are needed by 2030 to meet global demand.

He is exactly the kind of leader this moment demands.

Generation Beta Could Have Up To 30 Jobs In Their Careers. Are We Ready?

Here’s a data point that stopped me cold when I researched it before our conversation: Baby Boomers like me were expected to have one career. We ended up having 12 jobs and roughly 7 career chapters. Generation Beta—the children being born right now—is projected to have somewhere between 18 and 30 jobs and 7 to 10 distinct career chapters.

That is not a crisis. That is a design challenge. And the organizations, educators, and leaders who figure out how to support people through those transitions—not just at the beginning of a career—will define the next era of workforce development.

Cumberbatch has been thinking about this for decades. After earning a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford and first-class honors from the University of Kent, he built his early career at Procter & Gamble and Microsoft before pivoting to education technology. For the past 20 years, he has worked at the intersection of learning, certification, and workforce readiness—including senior roles at the Gates Foundation, Stride, and ACT.

“What I believe,” Cumberbatch told me, “is that within the next decade, we will see a dramatically different pathway from K-12 into workforce preparedness. We now talk about lifetime learning. People need to reinvent themselves more frequently. And AI really accelerates that final shift, because it allows an individual to identify data-driven pathways into the world of work.”

The Skills Gap Is Real—And It’s Not What You Think

PMI’s latest data shows 25 million unfilled jobs in the project management profession globally. That number is growing, even as AI reshapes the workplace. But the shortage isn’t purely technical. 

Cumberbatch is quick to reframe what’s actually missing.

PMI calls them “power skills”—what others might call soft skills or, increasingly, “durable skills.” Critical thinking. Listening. Interpersonal communication. The ability to navigate change and bring people along with you. “You can’t get all of that on Zoom,” I told Cumberbatch. He agreed completely.

The entry-level job crisis compounds this. Young people emerging from college are running into AI-powered resume screening that filters for specific skills and hands-on experience they simply don’t have yet. “There’s a lot of resentment now from kids coming out of college,” Cumberbatch noted, “saying, ‘I thought this was going to prepare me for that first job, but I can’t land that first job in the field I just trained in.’”

His solution? Start earlier and stack credentials continuously. PMI offers PM Ready, a certificate accessible to high schoolers with no prerequisites. Their foundational courses are free. The CAPM (Certified Associate in Project Management) requires only a high school diploma plus documented project work hours. And the gold-standard PMP (Project Management Professional), now being refreshed to include AI and sustainability for the first time, would be the next step in that career journey. For traditional students, the PMP is increasingly being embedded within MBA and graduate programs, so students graduate with the credential in hand. 

“The business degree itself is not always enough,” Cumberbatch said plainly. “It would be better if students graduated with their first professional certifications alongside their degree. They’re in learning mode when they’re in university. It’s a perfect time to concurrently pursue differentiating evidence of skills.”

What A Wedding Planner And A Home Renovation Have In Common With A PMP

One of my favorite moments in our conversation came when Cumberbatch shared a story from a recent PMI chapter event. A young, newly credentialed woman was asked in her first project management job interview to describe her hands-on experience. She had none—at least not in the traditional sense. So, she talked about planning her own wedding. She got the job.

That story matters because it illustrates something Cumberbatch is pushing hard within PMI: the idea that project management is a pervasive skill, not a siloed job title. You don’t need the title “project manager” to benefit from PMI training. IT professionals, program managers, healthcare administrators, nonprofit leaders—anyone for whom “getting important measurable work done” across teams and timelines is a significant part of the job—can and should be pursuing these credentials.

“In teenage speak,” he laughed, “for any hiring manager, it’s: you gotta be able to get stuff done. And if you can show you can get stuff done, you can get into this field.”

Project Professionals Are Now Leading AI Transformation

Here’s the headline within the headline: PMI’s newest certification, the PMI-CPMAI (Certified Professional in Managing AI), is now the fastest-growing certification in the organization’s history. And it’s not hard to understand why.

Across industries, companies are standing up dedicated Project Management Offices (PMOs) to oversee AI implementation. “A lot of project managers are saying they need to be highly proficient and highly knowledgeable about AI,” Cumberbatch explained. “But they also have to understand the hybrid nature of work—that AI doesn’t necessarily replace the whole job; it transforms the job from within.” PMI has also introduced the M.O.R.E. mindset as the role of project professionals evolves to strategic value delivery partners. When all four elements of M.O.R.E. are implemented consistently, project success rates more than triple: M.O.R.E. stands for Manage perceptions, Own success, Relentlessly reassess project parameters, and Expand perspective. 

In addition, PMI has launched PMI Infinity, a specialized AI platform that gives project professionals an AI companion for resource allocation, cost management, and project planning—built with PMI’s own frameworks and standards. For a 60-year-old institution, it’s a remarkable pivot. “The CEO has announced to the team: this is not a revolution we’re going to miss,” Cumberbatch said.

Compassionate Leadership Isn’t Soft. It’s Strategic.

I asked Cumberbatch for a leadership lesson, and he gave me one I’ve been thinking about ever since: “You can be compassionate and competitive at the same time. In fact, you must be.”

“If you can pursue both,” he said, “it leads to stewardship and sustainability—even in the nonprofit sector.” He’s navigating real market pressure. There are over 1.5 million credentials and certificates in the U.S. today, and by some estimates, only 5% of them are considered high quality by employers. PMI’s PMP is widely recognized as the gold standard. But that reputation has to be earned, maintained, and communicated—constantly.

“Disruption is not just for the for-profits,” he said, citing the late Harvard professor Clayton Christensen. “Disruption happens to all of us, and we need to stay vigilant.” His life lesson was equally grounding: safety and trust are the foundation of every lasting relationship—at home and at work. He contrasted two early corporate cultures—P&G’s promote-from-within model versus Microsoft’s harder-edged up-or-out era—as object lessons in what sustains versus what burns out talent.

“You’re not going to recruit the best talent and have them stay long if you’re pursuing a cutthroat culture.”

The PMI Chapter As The New Water Cooler

I’ll close with an observation that struck me as quietly profound. Cumberbatch described the growing importance of PMI’s local chapters for a workforce that is increasingly virtual, fractional, and untethered. Young people leaving college today may never work in a physical office. They are missing the organic mentorship, the serendipitous hallway conversations, the enculturation that Cumberbatch experienced at P&G.

“At least they know that in practically every city in the world, there’s a PMI chapter,” he said. “And as you join as a member, you feel like you’re part of this huge club of professionals that are convening, mentoring, sharing, and advising. Every week, there’s an event somewhere.”

The chapter is a community anchor. The credential is proof of capability. The certification pathway is a thread of continuity across a career with 18 to 30 jobs. That is a model worth paying attention to.

To learn more about PMI’s certifications, AI credentials, and the PMI Infinity platform, visit pmi.org. Connect with David Cumberbatch on LinkedIn.

Please join us as we continue this conversation about the future of work and education systems at our free online event on July 30th: The Work on Purpose Summit: Designing a Meaningful Career in the Age of AI.