REPORT
By Adam Boddison, OBE
Chief Executive Officer
Association for Project Management
United Kingdom
Projects, People and Possibility: What’s Happening
in APM and the Profession?
Association for Project Management (APM) has had a busy 2026, with new research, resources and events pointing to a profession increasingly focused on human judgement, digital capability and stronger professional standards.
One of the clearest signals comes from the APM Project Management Skills Survey 2026, the organisation’s first survey dedicated to the profession’s skills landscape. It provides a snapshot of current strengths and capability gaps, highlighting leadership, soft skills and AI capability amongst the areas shaping future performance. This feels particularly timely given APM’s separate Business Leader Index, which found confidence in organisations’ ability to deliver projects successfully falling from a 72% peak in October 2025 to 46% in January 2026, with recruitment challenges and constrained investment among the pressures identified.
The same themes are running through APM’s latest thought leadership. Recent blogs include Data literacy: Reading project data critically in the age of AI, The psychology of project escalation: Why reality travels so slowly and AI is already in your programme, but is your governance keeping up? Together, they convey the point that access to more technology and information does not remove the need for judgement, communication and critical thinking.
That message was also central to the Summer 2026 edition of Project magazine. The new-look issue explored the theme of connecting intelligence, covering AI, data, critical thinking and decision-making. It includes a “Brave new world” feature on AI’s impact on professional work and a major interview with NISTA Chief Executive Becky Wood on infrastructure and multidisciplinary teams.
More…
To read entire report, click here
How to cite this work: Boddison, A. (2026). APM Update for PMWJ, End of August 2026, report, PM World Journal, Vol. XV, Issue IX, September. Available online at: https://pmworldjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/pmwj168-Sep2026-Boddison-APM-Update-for-PMWJ.pdf
About the Author
Prof. Adam Boddison, OBE
Buckinghamshire, UK
Adam Boddison joined APM as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) in September 2021 having formally held CEO and senior executive roles in multiple educational organisations. Beyond APM, Adam has a portfolio of consultancy and volunteering supporting organisations and initiatives that benefit society.
Adam is a visiting Professor at the Stranmills University College and the University of Leicester (School of Business). He has authored several books and is a qualified clinical hypnotherapist. In 2022, Adam was awarded the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.
As CEO of APM, Adam is a leading figure in the UK’s project management professional and business communities, a popular keynote speaker at major events, and a prominent voice for the project profession with the UK government and general public.
About APM
APM (Association for Project Management) is a professional membership organisation that sets the standards for the project profession and raises its profile. As a registered charity, APM delivers learning and networking opportunities, qualifications, research, resources, events and best practice guidance for the project community, helping the profession deliver better. APM is the only chartered organisation representing the project profession in the world with over 45,000 individual members and more than 470 corporate partners based across 140 countries. For more, visit https://www.apm.org.uk/
