Project Manager
92% skill overlap
Your role
Project Manager (Banking)
Full profileYour role
- L3 salary
- Not published yet
- Upcoming dated changes
- 7 changes ahead
What the role does
A Project Manager in banking plans and runs projects that change how a bank works: new products, system upgrades and migrations, regulatory deadlines, operations automation and office moves. The role sets the plan, manages risks, assumptions, issues and dependencies (RAID), tracks budget and reports to sponsors and steering committees. Compared with a general project manager, it needs knowledge of banking products, the trade lifecycle, control requirements and how regulatory dates drive delivery.
Read a day in the life
A day in the life
The project manager runs a project to meet a new regulatory reporting requirement with a fixed deadline. The day starts with a stand-up of the workstream leads from finance, technology and data. Testing found gaps in source data for one product, so the manager agrees a workaround with the data lead and logs the decision. Late morning goes to a meeting with compliance and the business owner to confirm which controls must be in place at go-live and who signs off. After lunch the manager reviews the budget with the finance partner: vendor costs are on track, internal testing hours are above plan. Mid-afternoon brings a call with the operational risk team about the risk assessment required before release, and the manager adds the review to the plan. The manager then updates the RAID log and the critical path, showing two weeks of float left. The day ends with drafting the steering committee update, with a clear request for a decision on one open scope item.
Levels
- L1 Starting out
- L2 Independent
- L3 Senior or specialist
- L4 Leads a team or an area
- L5 Leads the function
Full level descriptions and job titles
The EFO level names are the common scale; job titles differ between employers.
| Level | What the work looks like | Typical years | Typical job titles |
|---|---|---|---|
| L1 Starting out | Project coordinator. Maintains plans, RAID logs and minutes for a banking project, tracks actions and learns governance, controls and banking products under supervision. | 0-2 | Banks: Analyst, Junior Analyst, Associate (asset servicing), Trainee, GraduateAsset servicers: Junior, Specialist (entry), Officer |
| L2 Independent | Runs small and medium banking projects end to end: plan, budget, risks, status reporting and sign-offs, and is the main contact for business and technology teams. | 2-5 | Banks: Analyst / Senior Analyst, AssociateAsset servicers: Specialist, Senior Specialist, Senior Officer |
| L3 Senior or specialist | Senior project manager. Leads complex regulatory or multi-system projects, manages vendors and cross-border teams, and handles trade-offs on scope, time, cost and control. | 5-9 | Banks: Senior Associate, AVP, Assistant ManagerAsset servicers: Senior Specialist, Expert, Team Lead (small team) |
| L4 Leads a team or an area | Leads a group of projects or a delivery team for a business line, owns governance, budget and resourcing, and is the escalation point for sponsors on delivery and regulatory risk. | 8-14 | Banks: VP, Manager, Senior ManagerAsset servicers: Team Lead, Manager, Head of Section |
| L5 Leads the function | Head of change delivery for a business line, legal entity or region. Accountable for the project portfolio, sets delivery standards and reports on progress and risk to senior management. | 12+ | Banks: Director, Executive Director, Managing Director, Head of functionAsset servicers: Head of Department, Director |
Skills
Where the skill weights come from
Each role lists its skills with a tier and a weight. The weights of one role add up to 100 percent.
Source: the EFO role catalogue, built from the ESCO classification and reviewed by the editors.
The percentage is the skill's share of the role; the bars are drawn relative to the anchor skill, which is shown full.
Critical
- Project planning and dependenciesWeight 12.8%Relevant to you
- Risk and issue management (RAID)Weight 8.5%Relevant to you
- Project governance and reportingWeight 8.5%Relevant to you
- Project budget managementWeight 8.5%Relevant to you
- Trade lifecycleWeight 8.5%Relevant to you
Important and supporting skills 18
Important
- Stakeholder managementWeight 4.3%Relevant to you
- Change management and adoptionWeight 4.3%Relevant to you
- Agile delivery (Scrum, Kanban)Weight 4.3%Relevant to you
- Project tools (Jira, Asana)Weight 4.3%Relevant to you
- Effort estimation and capacity planningWeight 4.3%Relevant to you
- Professional written communicationWeight 4.3%Relevant to you
- Prioritising with incomplete informationWeight 4.3%Relevant to you
- Leading without formal authorityWeight 4.3%Relevant to you
- Vendor and service contract managementWeight 4.3%Relevant to you
Supporting
- Requirements gathering and documentationWeight 2.1%Relevant to you
- Business case and cost-benefit analysisWeight 2.1%Relevant to you
- Microsoft PowerPointWeight 2.1%Relevant to you
- Verbal communication and presentingWeight 2.1%Relevant to you
- Reading organisational and political contextWeight 2.1%Relevant to you
- Data migration and cutoverWeight 2.1%Relevant to you
Useful
- Advanced Microsoft ExcelWeight 0.7%Relevant to you
- Querying data with SQLWeight 0.7%Relevant to you
- Lean methods and continuous improvementWeight 0.7%Relevant to you
Processes
The work the role takes part in.
- Change and project delivery
- Securities settlement
- Trade capture and booking
- Trade confirmation and affirmation
What each process covers
- Change and project deliveryMain
- Securities settlementMain
- Trade capture and bookingMain
- Trade confirmation and affirmationMain
Where the role concentrates
How AI is changing the role
AI features in project tools draft status reports, minutes and plans, and flag schedule and budget risks from task data.
Read the full assessment
AI features in project tools draft status reports, minutes and plans, and flag schedule and budget risks from task data. Administrative reporting work shrinks. The European Banking Authority notes rising AI use in EU banks with stronger expectations on governance, which adds AI-related controls to many projects. Value grows in managing regulatory deadlines, negotiating scope with senior stakeholders, coordinating vendors and teams across locations and judging delivery risk. The World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Report 2025 lists leadership and social influence among skills employers expect to grow.
Dated changes for this role
- ESMA guidelines on allocations and confirmations for T+1Relevant to you
- CSDR settlement discipline rules updated for T+1 in three stepsRelevant to you
- ECB Pontes: DLT settlement in central bank moneyRelevant to you
- ECB digital euro pilot with 36 payment providersRelevant to you
- Switzerland and Liechtenstein move to T+1 with the EU and UKRelevant to you
Salary snapshot
Salary figures are not published yet
The L3 salary range for this role, with its sources, will appear here when the salaries section opens.
Certifications
- PMP
- PRINCE2 Practitioner
- Certified ScrumMaster
- Professional Scrum Master I
- CBAP
- CAPM
Concepts to know
- Agile
- Business case
- RAID log
- User acceptance testing (UAT)
- Change request
- Cloud migration
- Core banking system
- Critical path
All 24 concepts
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Do this job? Suggest a correction
Sources
Trade lifecycleThe trade lifecycle is the sequence of steps a trade goes through from order to final maturity: execution, capture, enrichment, confirmation, clearing, settlement, reporting, lifecycle events such as resets, coupons and corporate actions, and termination. Front, middle and back office teams each own parts of it, with controls at each hand-off.
Operational riskOperational risk is the risk of loss from inadequate or failed internal processes, people and systems, or from external events. It includes legal risk and excludes strategic and reputational risk. Examples are fraud, processing errors, cyber incidents and outages.
RAID logA RAID log is a project register of Risks, Assumptions, Issues and Dependencies (some teams use Actions or Decisions for the A and D). Each entry has an owner, a rating, a due date and a status, and the log is reviewed regularly at project and steering meetings.
Critical pathThe critical path is the longest sequence of dependent tasks in a project schedule; it sets the earliest possible end date. Any delay to a task on it delays the whole project, while tasks off the path have slack (float).
Steering committeeA steering committee (SteerCo) is the senior group that directs a project or programme: it approves scope, budget and major changes, resolves escalated risks and issues, and decides at key gates whether work continues. It meets on a fixed cycle, often monthly.