September 2026: doors open Tuesday 25 August · save up to £649.50 · 15 seats ·
New The Agile Sprint. Three weeks, run on a live project. First cohort Monday 9 November 2026. See the programme →
ILM
Approved CentreInstitute of Leadership & Management
City & Guilds
Accredited byCity & Guilds
For career changers — no project experience needed

Every PM job wants experience.
Here's where you actually get it.

In six weeks you'll deliver a real project under real pressure — with the 2026 AI toolset in your hands — and walk out with an ILM Level 5 qualification, a portfolio of genuine project artefacts, and a true answer to “tell me about a project you've run.” No theory exams. No death by slides.

Take the 2-minute Readiness Assessment Watch the 90-second overview
Instant report · straight answers · no hard sell
Chris Lord, Founder of Digital Delivery Academy
Chris Lord — Founder 23 years leading delivery under pressure, British Army · Ex-Brigade Sergeant Major Now teaching career changers and service leavers, side by side. The rigour is the point — the background isn't required.
You are changing career

Two programmes. Pick your lane.

Both run on SKYPORT, the same live delivery scenario, and both are built around a full-time job. The difference is the job you walk out able to do.

Flagship · enrolling now
The Academy

Six weeks. One real project.
You run it.

50+ videos · 6 hours of live Decision Labs · 36 artefacts

  • ✓ILM Level 5 Certificate in Operational Leadership & Management, awarded through City & Guilds.
  • ✓A portfolio of 36 real PM artefacts you can put on the table in an interview.
  • ✓No degree and no prior project experience needed. The rigour is the point, the background is not.
  • ✓Pass guarantee, and Academy membership that carries on after the course.
£1,995£1,345.502026 price

Three and six month payment plans available. Same programme on every plan.

Show me the six weeks ↓
New · just launched
The Agile Sprint

Three weeks. One sprint, run for real.

22 videos · 2 live labs · 6 artefacts

  • ✓No exam. You are assessed on six artefacts you build with your own hands.
  • ✓Backlog, working agreement, live Kanban board, estimates and burn rate, and the Sprint End Report.
  • ✓Aimed at Scrum Master and delivery team roles, and at anyone whose organisation already runs Agile.
  • ✓An AI co-pilot from minute one. It drafts, you decide.
£8752026 launch price

First cohort Mon 9 Nov 2026, then Jan, Apr, Jun and Sep 2027.

See the Agile Sprint →

If you can only do one of them: take the six weeks. It carries the ILM Level 5 and the Agile Sprint does not, and if you have no delivery credential yet that certificate is what gets you past the first screen. If you already hold PRINCE2, APM PMQ or an ILM and what you are missing is the Agile practice, the Sprint is the faster answer.

The problem nobody fixes

The experience trap.

Every project role wants experience — and nobody will give you the project that provides it. Certificates alone don't break the loop: 73% of career-change rejections come down to a lack of matching experience, not a lack of letters after your name.

34,940

Live UK PM vacancies

January–April 2026 alone. The demand is real and growing.

£63k

Average PM salary

46% above the UK average — one of the best-paid careers you can enter without a degree.

73%

Rejected on experience

Employers say freshly-certified candidates still can't deliver under pressure. They're right.

6 wks

To break the loop

Not a two-year apprenticeship. Six weeks of doing the actual job — evidenced, assessed, certified.

PRINCE2 and APM teach the theory — we're not here to replace them. We're the missing piece: the place you get the delivery experience that makes any certificate worth something.
 
90 seconds

See what you're signing up for.

Why the Academy exists, what you'll actually do in the six weeks, and how the AI-powered approach changes what walking into your next project role looks like. If it's not for you, you'll know by second thirty.

Then take the Readiness Assessment
The course

Six weeks. One real project. You run it.

From day one you're the project manager on SKYPORT — a live, realistic delivery scenario that doesn't wait for you to feel ready. Designed around your 9-to-5: video lessons on your own time, live Decision Labs with your cohort.

1

Learn it fast

50+ practical video lessons released weekly — plain-English project management, no academic filler, built around a day job.

2

Do it for real

Charters, plans, RAID logs, estimates, cutover plans — produced by you, on a live scenario, to professional standard.

3

Decide under pressure

Six hours of live Decision Labs: the project throws problems at you and you make the calls, in real time, with your cohort.

4

Prove it

Personal feedback on every submission, an assessed portfolio, and an ILM Level 5 qualification at the end.

A live Decision Lab session
◆
ILM Level 5 Certificate — Operational Leadership & Management SkillsThe practitioner-grade credential employers actually point to. Assessed on your real artefacts, not an exam.
◆
AI-powered delivery, woven through every weekYou'll learn to deliver with the current AI toolset — the working setups real PMs are using in 2026, not theory about them.
◆
A portfolio you can put on the tableWalk into any interview with artefacts from a project you ran — and the decisions you defended live.
AI-native delivery

Most courses teach 2015 project management.
You'll learn how it's done in 2026.

AI isn't a bolt-on module here — it's woven through every week of the course. You'll plan, estimate, report and decide with the current AI toolset in your hands, the way the best delivery teams already work. We're forward-leaning by design: constantly testing the new tools and arming you with what actually moves the needle.

◆

AI in every week

From your first charter to your cutover plan — every artefact is built with AI in the loop, then judged by a human standard.

◆

Working setups, not theory

You leave with the actual prompts, tools and workflows our PMs use — configured, tested, yours to keep.

◆

AI drills under pressure

Live drills where AI helps you make delivery decisions faster — and you learn where it's brilliant and where it lies.

◆

The skill employers now ask for

“AI-capable PM” is appearing in job specs. As a career changer, this is your unfair advantage over 10-years-of-habit incumbents.

The film

Watch what happens when AI runs the admin — and the PM runs the project.

Three minutes inside the course: a live dashboard, built with AI, running our scenario project. The AI does the heavy lifting — the tracking, the reporting, the chasing — so your time goes where it actually counts: with your team and your stakeholders, making the calls only a human can make. And our learners don't just watch this. They build it themselves, on a full project they run end to end.

Watch the film
Why the Academy

How we compare to the certifications.

APM PMQPRINCE2Digital Delivery Academy
What it testsTheory examMethodology exam✓ Practical delivery, end-to-end
Live decisions under pressure✗ No✗ No✓ Six hours of Decision Labs
Portfolio of real artefacts✗ No✗ No✓ Full portfolio you can show
AI-powered delivery built in✗ No✗ No✓ Woven through every week
CertificationAPM PMQPRINCE2 Foundation / Practitioner✓ ILM Level 5 Certificate
Typical investment£1,200 – £1,800£800 – £1,500✓ £1,345.50 paid in full

PMQ and PRINCE2 test what you've learned. The Academy tests whether you can deliver, certifies the result — and costs roughly the same.

Who this is for

If you can hold your nerve, you can learn the rest.

Career changers

From retail, hospitality, ops, admin, engineering, healthcare — you've been organising chaos for years without the title or the salary.

“Accidental” project managers

Coordinators, team leads and PMO admins already doing the job informally. Get the credential and the confidence to match.

Graduates & returners

You need credible, practical proof — fast. A portfolio beats a promise every time.

Service leavers

Where DDA started. You'll train alongside ex-forces learners — ask them what the standard is like.

Where graduates go

Built for the roles that decide who keeps delivering — across energy, professional services, public sector, defence and corporate technology delivery.

Project ManagerProgramme ManagerDelivery Lead Risk & GovernanceOperational LeadershipPMO & Capability
Results

Independently checked. In their words.

Our ILM centre's first external quality review rated the assessment and learner evidence “outstanding”. Here's what learners who've been through it say.

“Outstanding”External ILM quality verdict, July 2026
100%ILM portfolio pass rate, first cohort
15max seats per cohort — everyone gets feedback
50+practical video lessons per course
“More powerful than the PRINCE2 and Agile courses they'd done” — recorded straight after the cohort chaired their first live cutover call. A few stayed on to talk about what changed for them.
 
“

Exactly the kind of practical, real-world PM experience that makes it worthwhile.

John Blowes
John Blowes CMgrStrategic Risk & Governance Leader
“

The learning curve is steep — but the chance to work through realistic scenarios is powerful.

Keith Emmerson
Keith EmmersonProgramme & Operational Management Specialist
“

More powerful than the PRINCE2 and Agile courses I'd done — because you actually deliver something.

DDA
Course graduateMay 2026 cohort
The Academy

The course ends. The Academy doesn't.

Delivery changes fast; tools change faster. Once you're in, you stay in the loop — current templates, working AI setups, weekly updates, and a community of PMs who know exactly what you're going through.

◆
Always-current templatesThe artefact library keeps evolving after you graduate.
◆
Working AI setupsWe test the new tools so you don't have to — and share what actually moves the needle.
◆
A cohort that staysCareer changers and ex-forces PMs, all delivering, all comparing notes.
Academy workshop session
Dates & pricing

Two cohorts left in 2026.

The 2026 price applies to both remaining cohorts. September enrolment closes Friday 21 August. Choosing to pay in full brings it to £1,345.50.
Enrolling now · 2026 price

September 2026

Enrolling now
£1,345.50 £1,995
£1,345.50 paid in full (save £649.50) · 3-month plan £498.34/mo · 6-month plan from £186.88/mo
Doors open Tuesday 25 August — get set up, meet the platform, and work through Week 1 content ready for your first live session on 2 September.
Enrolment closes Friday 21 August.
  • Six-week live programme + ILM Level 5
  • Evening Decision Labs — built around a day job
  • Personal feedback on every submission
  • Academy membership after you graduate
Apply for September

November 2026

Enrolment open
£1,345.50 £1,995
Same 2026 price · same payment plans available
Doors open Monday 2 November — a full onboarding week before your first live session.
Enrolment closes Friday 30 October.
  • Identical programme and qualification
  • Ideal if you want a longer run-up
  • Lock in the 2026 price now, start in November
Apply for November
The pass guarantee: complete the programme honestly — attend the six Decision Labs, finish the lessons, submit on time, action your feedback — and if you don't pass the ILM Level 5 portfolio first time, we'll coach you through your resit at no additional cost.
2027 Cohorts
Now open — secure your place. Pricing released closer to the date.
New YearAcademy opensMon 4 Jan 2027
Late SpringAcademy opensMon 19 Apr 2027
Early SummerAcademy opensMon 7 Jun 2027
AutumnAcademy opensMon 30 Aug 2027
Late AutumnAcademy opensMon 25 Oct 2027
Apply for a 2027 cohort
Questions

Asked honestly, answered honestly.

I have zero project management experience. Can I really do this?

Yes — that's who this page is for. The first week assumes nothing. What you need is the will to show up to the live labs and do real work under a bit of pressure. If you've ever organised anything — a rota, a house move, a team — you have more raw material than you think. The Readiness Assessment will tell you honestly if now isn't the right time.

Will employers take this seriously against PRINCE2 or APM?

Different job. PRINCE2 and APM certify that you know the theory; we give you a delivered project, a portfolio, and a regulated ILM Level 5 management qualification. In interviews the portfolio changes the conversation — you stop saying “I've studied it” and start saying “here's one I ran.” Several of our learners hold PRINCE2 already and say this is what made it click.

Can I do it around a full-time job?

It's built for exactly that: video lessons on your own schedule, live evening Decision Labs, submissions at the weekend. Budget 6–8 hours a week for six weeks.

What is ILM Level 5?

A regulated UK qualification from the Institute of Leadership & Management (part of City & Guilds) — the Certificate in Operational Leadership & Management Skills, pitched at middle-management level. Ours is assessed on the real artefacts you produce during the course, not an exam.

Isn't this a military course?

It was built with service leavers first, and they're part of every cohort — that's where the discipline and the standard come from. But the skills were never military-specific: the same charters, plans, risks and decisions every organisation needs. Career changers now train alongside ex-forces learners, and both sides say the mix is half the value.

What if I fall behind, or it turns out it's not for me?

Talk to us — early. The cohort is capped at 15 precisely so nobody disappears in the crowd. And before you spend a penny, take the Readiness Assessment: if it says you're not ready yet, we'll tell you that too.

Find out if you're ready.

Two minutes, straight answers, instant report. No spam, no hard sell — and if the honest answer is “not yet,” that's what you'll get.

Take the Readiness Assessment
Free guide · 6 pages · instant download

Break Into Project Delivery — the 90-day plan.

The honest route into your first UK project role: what employers actually screen for in 2026, the six routes compared, and the exact interview answer framework. No spam — the guide, cohort dates, and one useful idea a week.

Instant download · unsubscribe anytime · we never share your data

Do your homework first. We'd rather you did.

Three honest reads before you decide anything: