How To Become An Executive Coach: What It Is and Career Path

What is an executive coach and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Quoted expert

Colin Briskey

The average executive coach salary is $49,819. The most common degree is a bachelor's degree degree with an business major. It usually takes 4-6 years of experience to become an executive coach. Executive coaches with a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) certification earn more money. Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 20% and produce 48,800 job opportunities across the U.S.

What general advice would you give to an executive coach?

Colin Briskey

Visiting Assistant Professor of Voice, Baldwin Wallace University

Know your worth and stand by it. A lot of people will tell you to say yes to everything and do things for free. In the music industry there are definitely early career stages where saying yes to nearly everything and doing some work for free is necessary. However, if you're always so busy working for free, you'll never have time to level up and get paid for your work. Do the work at the highest quality you can and stand by your worth.

ScoreExecutive CoachUS Average

Salary

3.9

Avg. Salary $49,819

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

8.0

Growth rate 20%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.9

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.23%

Asian 5.46%

Black or African American 8.96%

Hispanic or Latino 13.34%

Unknown 6.03%

White 65.98%

Gender

female 49.63%

male 50.37%

Age - 34

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 - 34

Stress level

8.0

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.4

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

7.3

Work life balance is good

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become an executive coach

Explore executive coach education requirements

Most common executive coach degrees

Bachelor's

62.1 %

Master's

23.8 %

Doctorate

5.8 %

Start to develop specific executive coach skills

Skills	Percentages
Emotional Intelligence	21.06%
C-Suite	14.16%
Leadership Development Programs	8.99%
Organization Development	6.47%
Process Improvement	5.66%

Complete relevant executive coach training and internships

Accountants spend an average of Less than 1 month on post-employment, on-the-job training. New executive coaches 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 an executive coach based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real executive coach resumes.

Research executive coach duties and responsibilities

Perform additional responsibilities as deemed appropriate by school and district supervisors such as organizing and managing elementary school mathematics information nights.
Establish and operates a company that specializes in providing executive coaching, leadership training and development to individuals and organizations.
Deliver structure feedback, coaching and action implementation programs that have resulted in multiple senior leadership promotions and best-fit organizational alignment.
Perform additional responsibilities as deemed appropriate by school and district supervisors such as organizing and managing elementary school mathematics information nights.

Get executive coach experience

Generally, it takes 4-6 years to become an executive coach. The most common roles before becoming an executive coach include consultant, director of human resources team lead and director.

Prepare your executive coach resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your executive coach 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 an executive coach resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable executive coach resume templates

Build a professional executive coach 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 executive coach resume.