What is a Chief Information Officer?

A chief information officer (CIO) is responsible for managing, implementing, and using information and computer technologies. They oversee the technological infrastructure of a company to ensure optimal performance and plan the implementation of new systems and guides IT professionals and other staff in the company. The CIO evaluates the costs and risks of information technology to advise management and recommend actions. They also ensure the compliance of the company's IT operations to local laws. Plus, they design technological systems to improve customer experience and satisfaction.

Employers require a minimum of a bachelor's degree in computer science or a related field, with previous work experience in a similar role. Applicants must also know about IT systems and infrastructure. Apart from this, you must possess analytical, leadership, organization, project and risk management, and problem-solving skills. You must also have a strategic and business mindset. Chief information officers earn $150,012 per annum. Their salary varies from $79,000 to $286,000.

What Does a Chief Information Officer Do

There are certain skills that many chief information officers have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed management skills, problem-solving skills and time-management skills.

Learn more about what a Chief Information Officer does

How To Become a Chief Information Officer

If you're interested in becoming a chief information officer, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 66.7% of chief information officers have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 20.1% of chief information officers have master's degrees. Even though most chief information officers have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.

Learn More About How To Become a Chief Information Officer
Top Chief Information Officer Jobs Near You

Chief Information Officer Career Paths

In addition to switching up your job search, it might prove helpful to look at a career path for your specific job. Now, what's a career path you ask? Well, it's practically a map that shows how you might advance from one job title to another. Our career paths are especially detailed with salary changes. So, for example, if you started out with the role of chief technology officer you might progress to a role such as chief technology officer eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title chief technology officer.

Chief Information Officer

Average Salary for a Chief Information Officer

Chief Information Officers in America make an average salary of $146,907 per year or $71 per hour. The top 10 percent makes over $219,000 per year, while the bottom 10 percent under $98,000 per year.
Average Chief Information Officer Salary
$146,907 Yearly
$70.63 hourly
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Roles and Types of Chief Information Officer

The role of a chief information officer includes a wide range of responsibilities. These responsibilities can vary based on an individual's specific job, company, or industry.Here are some general chief information officer responsibilities:

  • Develops, coordinates, tracks, and manages projects for a variety of simultaneous initiatives of varying sizes supports cross‐functional project teams consisting of application development, it operations,
  • Defines direction and oversees technology strategy, architecture, development, installation,
  • Analyze and review technology environments for prospective customers in order to determine opportunities for improvement. Provide subject matter expertise to the components

There are several types of chief information officer, including:

Information Technology Project Manager

Role:

The job of an information technology project manager isn't an entry-level position. You're going to want a few years of experience under your belt before tackling the career. In fact, you may even need some experience leading people.

As an information technology project manager, it's your job to manage the staff and lead them in the right direction so they can accomplish goals and produce results. Sometimes that means you'll have to be the "bad guy" by having a tough talk.

Being an information technology project manager can have it's stressful moments from time-to-time, but for the most part, it's a great job. Plus, you'll be able to take pride in the fact that all of your hard work paid off so that you could manage your own team, rather than the other way around.

  • Average Salary: $106,981
  • Degree: Bachelor's Degree

Chief Finance Officer

Role:

Taking it all the way to the top. As a chief finance office, you may not be the CEO, but you're pretty far up there. In fact, you're so far up the chain of command that you're in charge of all of the company's financial actions. That's a job with a lot of responsibility.

As the CFO, you get to follow the company's cash flow and spend some time doing financial planning to ensure everyone is staying on budget. You may even get to allocate some funds to an under-budgeted department. But the biggest part of your job is identifying any weaknesses or strengths that the company has when it comes to the green stuff.

As the CFO, you can't be someone who just says "yes" all of the time. You have to have a keen mind when it comes to budgeting because you don't want to be the cause of the company going bankrupt. So you'll have to say "no" from time to time. But you'll survive.

  • Average Salary: $143,947
  • Degree: Bachelor's Degree

Information Technology Manager

Role:

An information technology manager oversees the computing needs across a company. They coordinate the functions of all computer systems of the organization they work for and see to it that all hardware, software, networks, and related applications work correctly and efficiently.

They are responsible for hiring and training new employees, managing the IT budget, supervising the day-to-day operations, and troubleshooting the information systems. They evaluate factors that put the IT system at risk and make sure equipment and procedures are up to speed with the latest technologies.

IT managers land the position typically with a degree at hand in IT systems management or business administration and earn something around $152,860 a year.

  • Average Salary: $119,589
  • Degree: Bachelor's Degree
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States With The Most Chief Information Officer Jobs

Mouse over a state to see the number of active chief information officer jobs in each state. The darker areas on the map show where chief information officers earn the highest salaries across all 50 states.

Average Salary: Job Openings:

Number Of Chief Information Officer Jobs By State

RankStateNumber of JobsAverage Salary
1California8,085$161,372
2Texas3,939$124,469
3New York3,085$157,494
4Illinois2,596$142,803
5Pennsylvania2,381$153,196
6Massachusetts2,257$151,301
7North Carolina2,119$125,620
8Georgia2,033$117,111
9New Jersey1,920$155,652
10Ohio1,846$107,445
11Washington1,760$143,366
12Florida1,647$112,643
13Minnesota1,626$145,038
14Arizona1,479$108,661
15Michigan1,348$114,213
16Colorado1,297$126,854
17Tennessee1,171$101,416
18Maryland1,150$119,808
19Indiana1,135$120,818
20Wisconsin1,078$117,421
21Missouri1,047$99,756
22Virginia896$136,323
23Oregon884$150,029
24South Carolina816$123,204
25Alabama808$121,781
26Iowa666$97,740
27Connecticut662$148,843
28Kentucky605$108,218
29Oklahoma577$110,406
30Louisiana544$131,500
31Nevada542$139,350
32Kansas501$114,452
33Idaho475$117,228
34Nebraska461$129,577
35Mississippi460$76,123
36Arkansas459$102,553
37New Mexico453$137,309
38Utah438$108,647
39New Hampshire355$127,057
40Rhode Island348$133,416
41West Virginia300$114,289
42Maine257$116,060
43North Dakota254$117,480
44South Dakota227$107,408
45Vermont189$116,243
46Delaware167$135,553
47Montana165$110,386
48Alaska129$148,803
49Wyoming92$110,220
50Hawaii43$124,428

Chief Information Officer Education

Chief Information Officer Majors

Business
24.3 %
Computer Science
17.6 %
Computer Information Systems
6.4 %

Chief Information Officer Degrees

Bachelors

66.7 %

Masters

20.1 %

Associate

7.9 %

Top Colleges for Chief Information Officers

1. University of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, PA • Private

In-State Tuition

$55,584

Enrollment

10,764

2. Northwestern University

Evanston, IL • Private

In-State Tuition

$54,568

Enrollment

8,451

3. University of Southern California

Los Angeles, CA • Private

In-State Tuition

$56,225

Enrollment

19,548

4. University of Texas at Austin

Austin, TX • Private

In-State Tuition

$10,610

Enrollment

40,329

5. SUNY at Binghamton

Vestal, NY • Private

In-State Tuition

$9,808

Enrollment

13,990

6. Northeastern University

Boston, MA • Private

In-State Tuition

$51,522

Enrollment

13,760

7. Bentley University

Waltham, MA • Private

In-State Tuition

$49,880

Enrollment

4,177

8. George Washington University, The

Washington, DC • Private

In-State Tuition

$55,230

Enrollment

12,161

9. Lehigh University

Bethlehem, PA • Private

In-State Tuition

$52,930

Enrollment

5,030

10. Pennsylvania State University

University Park, PA • Private

In-State Tuition

$18,454

Enrollment

40,108

Top Skills For a Chief Information Officer

The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 6.5% of chief information officers listed cio on their resume, but soft skills such as management skills and problem-solving skills are important as well.

Choose From 10+ Customizable Chief Information Officer Resume templates

Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Chief Information Officer templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Chief Information Officer resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.

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Chief Information Officer diversity

Chief Information Officer Gender Distribution

Male
Male
81%
Female
Female
19%

After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:

  • Among chief information officers, 18.6% of them are women, while 81.4% are men.

  • The most common race/ethnicity among chief information officers is White, which makes up 76.9% of all chief information officers.

  • The most common foreign language among chief information officers is Spanish at 35.9%.

Online Courses For Chief Information Officer That You May Like

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1. How to Build A Startup

udacity

The main idea in this course is learning how to rapidly develop and test ideas by gathering massive amounts of customer and marketplace feedback. Many startups fail by not validating their ideas early on with real-life customers. In order to mitigate that, students will learn how to get out of the building and search for the real pain points and unmet needs of customers. Only with these can the entrepreneur find a proper solution and establish a suitable business model...

2. Business Process Management in Healthcare Organizations

coursera

Have you ever needed to resolve a billing or other issue with a healthcare organization and thought that there must be a better, more efficient, and more customer-friendly way to operate such a business process? For example, have you thought that there should be an easier way to read your bill or pay your bill? Or do you work in a healthcare organization and find yourself thinking that there must be better ways for the business processes to function? If you have, this course is for you. Course...

3. A Brief Guide to Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery

udemy
4.5
(2,274)

And a look at risks, threats, business impact analysis, and more...

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Best States For a Chief Information Officer

Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a chief information officer. The best states for people in this position are California, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Chief information officers make the most in California with an average salary of $161,372. Whereas in New York and New Jersey, they would average $157,494 and $155,652, respectively. While chief information officers would only make an average of $153,196 in Pennsylvania, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.

1. California

Total Chief Information Officer Jobs: 8,085
Highest 10% Earn:
$240,000
Location Quotient:
1.36

$161,372

Avg. Salary

View 8,085 Chief Information Officer Jobs In CA

2. New York

Total Chief Information Officer Jobs: 3,085
Highest 10% Earn:
$232,000
Location Quotient:
1.18

$157,494

Avg. Salary

View 3,085 Chief Information Officer Jobs In NY

3. New Jersey

Total Chief Information Officer Jobs: 1,920
Highest 10% Earn:
$230,000
Location Quotient:
1.19

$155,652

Avg. Salary

View 1,920 Chief Information Officer Jobs In NJ
Full List Of Best States For Chief Information Officers

How Do Chief Information Officers Rate Their Jobs?

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Top Chief Information Officer Employers

Most Common Employers For Chief Information Officer

RankCompanyAverage SalaryHourly RateJob Openings
1Pwc$159,826$76.8424
2Accenture$159,626$76.7480
3Hewlett Packard Enterprise$159,108$76.4920
4US Air Conditioning Distributors$156,110$75.0541
5USAF Police Alumni Association$153,521$73.8127
6United States Marine Corps$151,931$73.0417
7Lucent$151,095$72.6417
8IBM$149,236$71.7577
9JPMorgan Chase & Co.$144,893$69.6635
10Dell$140,131$67.3719
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Chief Information Officer Videos

The Role of a Chief Information Officer
Chief Information Officer | ISEEK
The CIA's Chief Information Officer Doug Wolfe Keynote

Becoming a Chief Information Officer FAQs

How Many Years Does It Take To Become A Cio?

It typically takes at least 15 years of work experience to become a CIO. To become a company's chief officer, a person needs to gain the necessary education, experience, and leadership skills. This is a senior-level position and typically takes significant work experience and knowledge to achieve.

How Much Money Does A Cio Make?

A CIO makes around $200,000 annually. The typical salary range for a CIO is around $170,000 per year to $350,000 in a year.

However, what a CIO should be paid depends on several factors that significantly impact the salary. These are level of experience, organizational structure, and industry.

What Education Is Required To Be A Chief Information Officer?

The education required to be a chief information officer role is typically a master's degree. This is usually in business administration, finance, or business management.

This is because chief information officers are responsible for managing and successfully implementing the entire company's information and computer technology systems.

What's The Difference Between A Cio And Cto?

The difference between a CIO and a CTO is the role's focus. The CIO typically looks inward, aiming to improve processes within the company, while the CTO looks outward, using technology to improve or innovate products that serve the customers.

Have more questions? See all answers to common executive management questions.

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Updated April 6, 2023