I have been reading PM job postings the way everyone does, one at a time, forming an impression. Impressions are cheap.
So on September 10 I pulled every open project, program and PMO role from 98 public company job boards in North America and counted what they ask for. 306 postings, 51 employers.
Here is what came back.
The Shift
What do PM job postings actually ask for in 2026?
Seven distinct responsibility areas per role, AI somewhere in the duties in 47% of them, and no named tool at all in half.
The postings spend most of their words on how much one person holds at once, and on the domain the work sits in. The tools line and the certification get very little, roughly the reverse of how PM profiles are built.
The System
Which five numbers should change something this month?
Each one has a move attached.
1. Seven hats, and seniority does not reduce them. A median of 7 distinct responsibility areas, out of the 14 below, and 60.5% of the 304 postings that list responsibilities carry 7 or more. Mid, Senior and Staff all sit at 7. Move: count the areas your last role covered, and lead your profile with the ones that also rank high below.
2. AI is in 47.4% of duty lists. Data work is in 32.4%, cloud in 12.1%. Counted anywhere in a posting, intros included, AI hits 85.3%, where the scarier numbers come from. Move: plan against 47%, the share where AI is in the job rather than the boilerplate.
3. Half the postings name no tool. 50.3%, and Jira is the only tool above 12%. SQL (9.5%) beats MS Project (5.9%). PMP is asked for in 11.1%. Move: trade a line of tool logos for a decision you owned.
4. 23 of 306 postings are titled Project Manager. Technical Program Manager (46.1%) and Program Manager (41.2%) carry 87% between them. Same work in the bullets, different word on the door, and the filters follow the word. Move: check what your headline is indexed against.
5. The word Senior is worth about $1,500. Disclosed median midpoints: Mid $182,925, Senior $184,375, Staff or Principal $222,000. Mid and Senior both ask a median 5 years; Staff asks 8. Move: the step that pays is Staff, and scope argues for it.
The Receipt
No download this issue. The method is what to keep.
Public Greenhouse and Lever boards only, 98 checked, 51 with a PM role open, pulled 2026-09-10. Rule-based counting, no model guessing, and a second implementation as a cross-check: 49 checks, none failed. One employer is 26% of the corpus; drop it and AI rises to 60.6% while the hat median holds at 7. Canada is 12 postings, too few to cut on. Pay is disclosed in 82%, and those ranges are negotiating envelopes.
The AI Assist
Paste a posting you are considering:
Read the job posting below. Mark each of these 14 areas PRESENT or ABSENT in its duties, quoting the line that made you say PRESENT: operations and execution, technical delivery, stakeholder communication, planning and scheduling, vendor and partner management, product and roadmap, governance and compliance, metrics and reporting, process improvement, change management, risk and issue management, budget and finance, strategy, people leadership. Then do the same against my own profile. Write ABSENT rather than inferring, and never credit an area on a job title alone. Then list the areas present in the posting and absent from my profile, and for each one ask me a question that would establish whether I have actually done that work. Do not write bullets for me.
The gaps it finds are the interview conversation anyway.
The Move
Open the last posting you saved. Count its responsibility areas, then the ones your profile shows. Close the biggest gap today.
Reply prompt: which cut do you want next, by company, by region, or by title? Tell me and I will run it against the same 306 postings.
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