Project Management Statistics (2026)

Thirty-six percent of organizations always or mostly complete their projects on time, according to Wellingtone's 2026 State of Project Management survey. Among 16,000 large projects in Bent Flyvbjerg's database, just under half came in on budget, 8.5% on budget and on time, and 0.5% on budget, on time and with the promised benefits. In the US, 1.09 million people work as project management specialists at a median $102,320, and BLS expects 7% growth over the decade.

The pages that rank for this question report that 70% of projects fail, a figure with no source; quote PMI's 2018 waste estimate as current; and place a 35% success rate from one study beside a 73.8% performance rate from another without saying they measure different things. This page separates measured success rates by definition, dates every PMI and Standish figure, gives the BLS employment and pay data, and covers methodology adoption, team time loss, talent demand and AI, with the sample and date next to each figure. Several of the most-quoted sources, including PMI's reports, block automated access, and the figures taken from them are marked with their publication year so they can be checked.

Success and failure rates, by definition

There is no single project success rate, because every source defines success differently. The table lists the ones with a stated method.

PMI's 2025 figures are group comparisons rather than overall averages, and they put the failure rate for the typical project at about one in ten and the on-schedule rate around 60%. Flyvbjerg's database is weighted to large capital and IT projects, where the odds are worst. Standish's success definition changed in 2015 to include satisfaction and value, so its figures cannot be trended across editions and its data have never been published. The honest summary is that most projects deliver something close to what was promised, roughly a third to 40% run late, about one in ten fails outright, and the share of large projects that hit every target is close to zero. Our project plan template covers the baseline those rates are measured against.

Cost overruns and the long tail

Flyvbjerg and colleagues' 2022 paper in the Journal of Management Information Systems, The Empirical Reality of IT Project Cost Overruns, analyzed 5,392 IT projects and found overruns follow a power-law distribution with a fat tail rather than a bell curve: most projects overrun modestly and a small share overrun catastrophically, which makes the average a poor guide to the risk. Their 2011 Harvard Business Review analysis of 1,471 projects put the average IT overrun at 27% with about one in six projects a "black swan" averaging a 200% overrun. McKinsey and Oxford's 2012 study of about 5,400 large IT projects found the average running 45% over budget, 7% over time and delivering 56% less value than predicted, with 17% going badly enough to threaten the company. These are the figures behind every "IT projects fail" headline, and they are about large projects, over a decade old, and from pages that could not be re-verified for this article. Our project estimate template covers the reference class forecasting Flyvbjerg recommends.

Cost of failure and waste

PMI's Pulse of the Profession estimated in 2018 that organizations wasted 9.9% of every dollar invested in projects through poor performance, about $99 million per $1 billion, and in 2020 that the figure was 11.4%, or $114 million per $1 billion. The widely quoted "$122 million per $1 billion" is from the 2016 edition. PMI has not published a comparable waste figure since 2020, so every page carrying one as current is six to ten years out of date. In Wellingtone's 2026 data, 44% of practitioners were somewhat or very dissatisfied with their organization's project management maturity and 72% spent half a day or more each month collating reports. Our project status report template is built to cut that.

Methodology adoption

PMI's 2024 Pulse found teams performed about equally well using predictive, agile and hybrid approaches, and that organizations with at least three supportive enablers saw an 8.3-point performance gain regardless of method. Its 2025 edition reported hybrid approaches up 57% since 2020 and purely predictive approaches down 24% over three years. The method matters less than the conditions around it. Our agile project management templates and sprint planning template cover the hybrid toolkit.

PMOs and maturity

Wellingtone's 2026 survey found 67% of practitioners seeing their project management office's scope and responsibilities increasing. The survey's sample size and fieldwork dates are not stated on its landing page and its full report is gated, so it is quoted here for direction rather than precision. PMI's 2025 data split professionals into 66% with moderate business acumen, 18% high and 16% low, and found the high group's projects met objectives 5 points more often and failed 3 points less often. Our project charter template covers the governance a PMO typically standardizes first.

Talent demand and pay

BLS's Occupational Outlook Handbook counts 1,094,300 project management specialist jobs in 2025, with a median pay of $102,320 a year or $49.19 an hour in May 2025. It projects 1,167,400 jobs in 2035, growth of 7% or 73,200 jobs, much faster than the 3% average for all occupations, with about 76,500 openings a year from growth and replacement. The occupation is narrower than everyone titled "project manager," since many managers who run projects are classified elsewhere. PMI's 2025 Talent Gap report, which could not be opened for this page, estimates about 40 million project professionals worldwide and up to 30 million more needed by 2035; its 2021 edition said 25 million by 2030 and its 2017 edition 87.7 million by 2027, and all three still circulate. Our roles and responsibilities template covers how the role is scoped.

Team time loss and collaboration

Atlassian's 2025 State of Teams, from 12,000 knowledge workers and 200 executives, found teams losing about 25% of their time searching for answers. Its 2024 edition, from 5,000 workers and 100 Fortune 500 executives, found 56% saying teams plan and track work differently, 50% having duplicated another team's work, 65% saying responding to messages mattered more than progress on priorities, and 93% of executives believing teams could deliver similar outcomes in half the time with better collaboration. Asana's 2023 Anatomy of Work survey of 9,615 knowledge workers found 3.6 hours a week lost to unnecessary meetings and 10 applications used a day, and 87% of workers at organizations with clear, connected goals saying the organization was ready to meet customer expectations. Microsoft's 2024 Work Trend Index, from 31,000 workers in 31 markets, found 68% struggling with the pace and volume of work and 46% burned out. Our meeting statistics and workplace communication statistics pages cover those losses in detail, and the latter includes PMI's 2013 finding that highly effective communicators delivered on time 71% of the time against 37%.

Software and AI in project management

No primary source measures what share of organizations use project management software; the 23% and 77% figures online are from a software review site and have no stated sample. On AI, Microsoft's 2024 survey found 75% of knowledge workers using AI at work, 78% of them bringing their own tools and 39% having received AI training from their employer; Gallup's US panel put AI use at 52% of employees in May 2026, with 16% of users applying it to process automation. Gartner's 2019 prediction that AI would eliminate 80% of project management tasks by 2030 is a forecast and still appears as a finding. Our AI in the workplace statistics page covers adoption and the productivity trials.

Figures to stop using

• "70% of projects fail." No source. Standish's 2020 figures are 31% successful, 50% challenged and 19% failed, under a definition that changed in 2015; PMI's 2025 failure rate is 8% to 11%.
• "$122 million wasted per $1 billion." PMI's 2016 figure. The 2018 figure was $99 million and the 2020 figure $114 million; nothing newer exists.
• "Only 2.5% of companies complete 100% of their projects." Untraceable.
• "97% of organizations believe project management is critical." PwC, 2012.
• "77% of high-performing projects use project management software." PMI 2017, comparing high and low performers; not an adoption rate.
• "8.5% of projects deliver their benefits." Flyvbjerg's 8.5% is on budget and on time; 0.5% is the three-way figure.
• "17% of IT projects fail." McKinsey's 17% is the share with overruns that threaten the firm.
• "25 million project managers needed by 2030" or "87.7 million by 2027." Superseded editions of PMI's talent gap report.
• BLS "project management specialists" presented as all project managers. A narrower occupation.

Key takeaways

• 36% of organizations always or mostly complete projects on time in Wellingtone's 2026 survey. PMI's 2025 data put the on-schedule rate near 60% and the failure rate at 8% to 11%.
• Of more than 16,000 large projects in Flyvbjerg's database, about 48% came in on budget, 8.5% on budget and on time, and 0.5% on budget, on time and with the promised benefits.
• IT project overruns follow a power law across 5,392 projects: most overrun modestly and a small share catastrophically. The average large IT project ran 45% over budget in the 2012 McKinsey and Oxford data.
• PMI's last waste estimate, from 2020, was 11.4% of project investment. The $122 million per billion figure is from 2016.
• Predictive, agile and hybrid teams perform about equally well; hybrid use rose 57% since 2020 and purely predictive fell 24%.
• 1,094,300 Americans work as project management specialists at a median $102,320, with 7% growth and about 76,500 openings a year projected to 2035.
• Teams lose about 25% of their time searching for answers, 3.6 hours a week to unnecessary meetings, and 50% have duplicated another team's work.
• '70% of projects fail' has no source, and most PMI figures online are six to ten years old.