At the beginning of 2026, we conducted our first Technical Project Management Radar survey to better understand the delivery environments and realities in which our technical project management (TPM) professionals operate.
The radar focuses on Gofore’s Finnish customer projects and combines internal project data with survey responses from 64 TPM professionals.
Download the Technical Project Management Radar 2026 results (PDF).
Roles in current assignments: delivery leadership with technical depth
TPM professionals operate in a variety of roles, including:
- Technical Project Manager (44%)
- Scrum Master (45%)
- Other TPM-specific roles (11%)
The “other” category includes roles such as architect, software developer, and business or requirements analyst alongside TPM responsibilities.
TPM work at Gofore often requires architectural understanding, requirement definition competence, and the ability to at least read or discuss code with development teams. Technical fluency and understanding what’s happening under the hood is an important part of succeeding in the role.
Long-running delivery environments define the TPM role
A clear majority of TPM assignments are multi-year engagements, with most lasting more than 24 months. Short-term projects are the exception rather than the rule. This highlights an important finding: TPM work at Gofore is built on continuity and deep domain understanding.
- The long-running projects allow TPMs to grow into trusted advisors, influencing not only how the work is delivered, but often also what should be delivered next.
- Most respondents also had more than two years of experience in their current domain – a strong indicator of seniority within our TPM capability.
Unlike some other service areas at Gofore, TPM professionals often work across two or more projects in parallel. This clearly differentiates TPM work from, for example, the findings of the Developer Radar.
Project domains: strong public sector experience with growing intelligent industry demand
The most common customer domains in current TPM projects are:
- Digital Society (73%)
- Intelligent Industry (22%)
- Defence & Space (5%)
Digital Society’s dominance highlights Gofore’s long-standing presence in public sector transformation. However, a notable signal in the data is that Intelligent Industry is steadily growing as a customer domain. Defence & Space, while still a smaller share, is also expanding – pointing to rising competence in highly regulated environments.
Compact teams are the norm
Most TPM-led projects operate within 3–5 person teams, although both larger and single-person settings exist.
Smaller teams typically support:
- Fast, focused collaboration
- Clear ownership
- Limited context switching
For TPMs, this results in a delivery environment where leadership is close to the work and technical decisions are easier to navigate.
Languages used: Finnish is essential
- Finnish: 61%
- English: 34%
- Other languages (German, Swedish, etc.): 6%
Finnish remains the primary working language in most TPM projects, but English appears more prominently than expected.
Many projects operate in a bilingual setting: while day-to-day collaboration and customer communication take place in Finnish, documentation and architectural outputs are often produced in English. In private sector projects – particularly in industry – English is often used as the primary working language.
Geographically distributed talent close to customers
Our TPM professionals are mostly based across Gofore’s Finnish offices – including Tampere, the capital area, Jyväskylä, Turku, and regional hubs such as Lappeenranta, Vaasa, and Oulu – ensuring close collaboration with local customers.
We also have an international TPM community, with team members in Spain and Estonia bringing additional expertise, perspectives, and collaboration across locations. Our experts in German-speaking Europe were not included in this study.
AI in delivery leadership and facilitation
As part of the Project Radar, a dedicated AI section was included in the survey to better understand how AI is currently used in the work of technical project managers. In this context, AI refers primarily to generative AI tools such as copilots and large language model (LLM)-based assistants.
AI is increasingly used by technical project managers to support the coordination, structuring, and facilitation of delivery work.
The strongest adoption can be seen in tasks that require sense-making and alignment. Around 70% of respondents use AI for thinking support and structuring complex information, while nearly half apply it in project management and leadership activities such as planning, decision support, and risk analysis. AI is also commonly used in communication-heavy work, helping to refine stakeholder messaging and summarise discussions.
In agile delivery contexts, AI is applied to support facilitation and team processes. Approximately one third of respondents use it in backlog refinement, retrospective preparation, and workshop follow-up, where AI helps turn unstructured inputs into actionable outputs.
From a tooling perspective, usage concentrates around a small set of widely adopted tools. GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, and Microsoft 365 Copilot form the core toolkit, complemented by a broader set of emerging tools used in individual projects.
AI is most clearly embedded in areas where technical project managers operate at the intersection of people, information, and decision-making. It enhances clarity, speeds up preparation, and supports alignment, while AI-native delivery practices remain in an early stage of development.
The role of AI in technical project management is evolving rapidly, and we expect its impact on delivery models to grow significantly in the coming years.
Interested in working at Gofore?
If this resonates with your experience and interests, we’d be happy to hear from you. Have a look at our open technical project manager positions:
