How To Become A Child Care Center Administrator: What It Is and Career Path

What is a child care center administrator and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Quoted expert

Dr. Joseph Oluwole

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a child care center administrator. For example, did you know that they make an average of $28.07 an hour? That's $58,379 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 8% and produce 6,200 job opportunities across the U.S.

What general advice would you give to a child care center administrator?

Dr. Joseph Oluwole

Department Chair and Full Professor, Website

The ability to build and sustain relationships with staff for climate and culture and with parents for family and community relations, all to support the holistic success of students.

ScoreChild Care Center AdministratorUS Average

Salary

4.6

Avg. Salary $58,379

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

9.8

Growth rate 8%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.0

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.70%

Asian 4.33%

Black or African American 10.68%

Hispanic or Latino 14.10%

Unknown 4.00%

White 66.19%

Gender

female 68.10%

male 31.90%

Age - 47

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 47

Stress level

9.8

Stress level is very high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.4

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

7.7

Work life balance is good

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a child care center administrator

Explore child care center administrator education requirements

Most common child care center administrator degrees

Bachelor's

58.3 %

Associate

16.0 %

Master's

13.5 %

Start to develop specific child care center administrator skills

Skills	Percentages
Quality Care	22.30%
Nursing Home	17.91%
DHS	13.87%
Federal Regulations	7.86%
Child Care Facility	6.78%

Complete relevant child care center administrator training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 2-4 years on post-employment, on-the-job training. New child care center administrators learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a child care center administrator based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real child care center administrator resumes.

Research child care center administrator duties and responsibilities

Manage facilities maintenance/upgrades, and systems such as electronic medical records (EMR), billing, transcription and phones.
Budget preparation/administration, record maintenance, purchasing, payroll, supervision of staff, development and administration of policies and procedures.
Teach them numbers ABC's sanitize the whole room change diapers make breakfast lunch and snack nap time reading time

Prepare your child care center administrator resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your child care center administrator resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a child care center administrator resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable child care center administrator resume templates

Build a professional child care center administrator resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your child care center administrator resume.