How To Become A Project Team Lead: What It Is and Career Path

What is a project team lead and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Project team leads shepherd a project to success by motivating their team and supporting their work. They can work in technology, manufacturing, or any other industry where a company needs to bring a project to success. Most of a project team lead's tasks involve people. They hire new workers, train them, and track their performance. They ensure that there is clear communication between all team members and encourage them to meet deadlines. Project team leads also get involved with more technical aspects of executing a project, like integrating programs and managing data.

A project team lead is responsible for executing a project just like a project manager, but a project manager's job tends to be more focused on logistics while a project team lead works more with people.

The qualifications to become a project team lead depend on the team lead's industry. For example, a project team lead at a software company should probably know a lot about computer science. No matter where they work, most project team leads have bachelor's or even master's degrees. They also need at least some management experience. All that hard work pays off, since project team leads make an average salary of $102,839 a year.

ScoreProject Team LeadUS Average

Salary

7.7

Avg. Salary $105,306

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability Level

7.4

Growth Rate 10%

Growth Rate 0.3%

Diversity

4.1

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.51%

Asian 11.99%

Black or African American 6.24%

Hispanic or Latino 8.82%

Unknown 4.70%

White 67.73%

Gender

female 32.37%

male 67.63%

Age - 43

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 43

Stress Level

7.4

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity Level

8.5

Complexity Level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work Life Balance

3.7

Work Life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

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Key steps to become a project team lead

Explore project team lead education requirements

Most common project team lead degrees

Bachelor's

66.0 %

Master's

15.1 %

Associate

11.3 %

Start to develop specific project team lead skills

Skills	Percentages
Project Management	14.96%
R	7.58%
Project Scope	5.75%
Logistics	5.60%
Database	5.35%

Complete relevant project team lead training and internships

Accountants spend an average of Less than 1 month on post-employment, on-the-job training. New project team leads learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a project team lead based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real project team lead resumes.

Research project team lead duties and responsibilities

Manage UAT, build test plans, regression testing, compile results, training.
Lead the program integration effort for a major conversion / upgrade of ERP software for military aircraft production programs.
Design SharePoint Wiki sites, and manage SharePoint environment.
Manage RFP large scale network/infrastructure relate expansion, integration, and/or decommissioning projects.

Get project team lead experience

Generally, it takes 4-6 years to become a project team lead. The most common roles before becoming a project team lead include team leader, project manager team lead and internship.

Prepare your project team lead resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your project team lead resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a project team lead resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose From 10+ Customizable Project Team Lead Resume templates

Build a professional Project Team Lead resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your Project Team Lead resume.

Apply for project team lead jobs

Now it's time to start searching for a project team lead job. Consider the tips below for a successful job search:

Browse job boards for relevant postings
Consult your professional network
Reach out to companies you're interested in working for directly
Watch out for job scams

How do project team leads rate their job?

-/5

5 Stars

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Project Team Lead reviews

A zippia user wrote a review on Feb 2023

Pros

I like to work with a team. Satisfaction of seeing the successful completion of a project

A zippia user wrote a review on Aug 2020

Cons

It needs more patience to apply the true solution and satisfy your client