Today's business systems face a variety of challenges to modern business operation on a daily basis. If they strive to maintain or increase their competitiveness in such circumstances, they need to keep seeking new solutions. These solutions have to be part of a continuous creation process, i.e. implementation of continuous and project processes. Even though continuous processes account for most business activities throughout the world, it is obvious that projects as one-off, goal and time constrained processes, represent the basis for the growth and development of any business systems. In order for projects to be efficiently implemented and succeed, it is essential to provide business systems with an efficient project management system. Although project processes are seen as the basis for the growth and development of project systems, according to some research results, only 40% of projects are successfully implemented. One of the reasons for such poor results is lack of competence in people who participate in any project role and phase. Project competence in individuals participating in projects can primarily be enhanced through the process of life-long learning. Higher education should have the most important role in this process and should raise the level of project competence development in individuals who do certain study programmes, particularly in those specialising in project management. The number of study programmes in project management in the Republic of Croatia is still insufficient, and only one programme offering the acquisition of an entire set of required project competencies has been recognised. This study programme is the specialist graduate professional study programme of Project management carried out at The University of Applied Sciences Baltazar Zaprešić. This programme is the only one in the Republic of Croatia, as well as in the region, that has been accredited by one of the two leading world organisations in the field of project management. Apart from offering an opportunity to develop specific competencies, each study programme (including the one in the field of project management) should build its competitiveness on continuous enhancement of the quality of its educational services as well as on applying the marketing concept in business operation. For all the above mentioned reasons, the main aim of this doctoral thesis is to research the need of employers for project competencies in individuals on the Croatian labour market, who are their potential employees, and the opportunities for acquiring such competencies through the existing higher education system. In order to achieve this aim, which has generated the other individual objectives and the hypotheses of this thesis, empirical research consisting of four steps has been carried out. The research was based on a survey, and each of the four questionnaires was prepared for a specific target group (employers in the Croatian labour market, employers of Project management graduates, Project management graduates and students currently studying Project management). Elements of project competencies as seen in the first three parts of this research have been taken from the fundamental document of the International Project Management Association entitled IPMA Competence Baseline V.3.0. (since at the time when the research was being conducted the new ICB V.4.0 was still being worked on). In the research into quality of educational services an adapted questionnaire based on the SERVQUAL model of the descriptive statistical analysis method was applied, which is commonly used for measuring discrepancies between the expected and the experienced quality of service. The first part of the research was conducted on a sample of 330 business systems based in the Republic of Croatia. The second part was carried out on a sample of 30 business systems which employ Project management graduates, while the third part of the research was based on a sample of 104 Project management graduates. Finally, the fourth part of the research related to the quality of educational services and marketing orientation of the study programme was conducted on a sample of 137 Project management students. The results of the research suggest that in the Croatian labour market there is a need for employees with highly developed project management competencies. It also points to the fact that the level of project management competencies can be raised through the higher education system, more specifically, through specialised study programmes in the field of project management. Research results also suggest that the said Project management study programme offers a high quality of educational services and the marketing orientation of the study programme has a positive impact on the quality, which should have a significant role in the programme’s competitiveness in the market of higher educational services in the Republic of Croatia.