Moving from secretarial job to project management

[Polarbearflavour]

I've been a personal assistant / executive assistant for several years. I'm now working as an EA for a very large organisation. I'm under utilised in the role and rather bored of being seen as "just" a secretary. I'm also aware that there are limited progression opportunities and in the future due to automation, there will be far fewer jobs.

I can study project management qualifications at work and hopefully move over into this area. Has anybody else made the move? There seem to be lots of PM jobs around for qualified people paying more than my current salary. It also looks like a role that will be around for years to come?

Yes!! Exactly that. I was an admin person then PA or Exec Assistant. Yes, it does indeed often pay more (although the ability to earn loads has somewhat diminished if you're in the public sector, and especially the NHS).

I've completed the coursework for Prince2 but have never taken the exam. I've been working in project roles since 2013 - Project Support Officer for a couple of years or so and then in 2015-2016 got a PM role (all without taking the Prince2 exam mind!) then a second PM role the year after that, and this year I'm at a public sector organisation where I'm PM on one project, and Programme Manager on another (!!). I'm hoping I could get into PM/Programme Management ideally in the private sector where the money's better.

But you can definitely make the switch for sure. Do you have a plan or an idea of how you'd make the transition??? Would you do it initially within your own organisation??

I made the move without qualifications. I was lucky though. I hrlped out on some projects that would cross my current role and the the transformation director offered me a job.

I am doing qualifications along side the job. I love it and do get paid well.