The article summarizes the experience of developing project management skills in university students in the Kemerovo Region. Management skills give graduates a competitive advantage, thus developing the laborpotential of the region. However, project management as a teaching area is not free of terminological errors. Theresearch revealed a lack of systematic approach in teaching project management in the Kemerovo Region, as well as some other training problems. The author developed a set of recommendations based on monitoring the activities of the regional universities and their websites, as well as on the expert assessments from interviews with university management. The Kemerovo State University develops project management competencies in school students at the School of Young Strategists, not to mention a number of additional education programs. Unfortunately, the efforts are not sufficient enough to develop project management skills of required quality.Students need to be involved in real projects of regional, municipal, and university level to consolidate their skills and motivate them to perform similar tasks after graduation. By using a decent financial reward to attract new graduates to project team work, the regional authorities could partially solve the problem of the outflow
of job migration.