How To Become An Internal Audit Director: What It Is and Career Path

What is an internal audit director and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

As an Internal Audit Director, you will spearhead and oversee the organization's auditing procedures to ensure efficiency and accuracy. You might also be tasked to set objectives and goals, manage timelines and budgets, gather information, analyze organizational data, and many more.

Of course, since you play an important role, there are skills and traits you need to possess. For example, you need to have excellent analytical skills in order to easily find relevant and useful information and set them apart from irrelevant data. You also need to be detail-oriented and be able to perform basic math operations.

As an Internal Audit Director, you can earn around $132,456 per year on average. There is also a job growth rate of 6%, which is not bad. You can also further your career and explore other roles and tasks along the way. You can be a Chief Finance Officer or a Chief Finance and Operating Officer.

ScoreInternal Audit DirectorUS Average

Salary

8.4

Avg. Salary $129,717

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

7.0

Growth rate 6%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

6.4

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.46%

Asian 12.12%

Black or African American 8.81%

Hispanic or Latino 11.15%

Unknown 3.97%

White 63.49%

Gender

female 27.45%

male 72.55%

Age - 43

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 - 43

Stress level

7.0

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.9

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

4.1

Work life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become an internal audit director

Explore internal audit director education requirements

Most common internal audit director degrees

Bachelor's

76.5 %

Master's

18.2 %

Associate

3.0 %

Start to develop specific internal audit director skills

Skills	Percentages
CPA	8.53%
Internal Controls	8.37%
Risk Management	7.43%
Audit Reports	5.01%
SOX	4.52%

Complete relevant internal audit director training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 6-12 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New internal audit directors 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 internal audit director based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real internal audit director resumes.

Research internal audit director duties and responsibilities

Implement COSO framework to achieve objectives relate to financial reporting, regulatory compliance, and operational effectiveness and efficiency.
Manage Sarbanes-Oxley implementation and internal audit outsourcing and co-sourcing activities for clients in multiple industries including financial services and manufacturing companies.
Develop internal audit risk assessments base on COSO internal control framework.
Establish internal quality control standards which enable maximum SOX reliance strategy by external auditors resulting in reduce external audit fees.

Get internal audit director experience

Prepare your internal audit director resume

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

Choose from 10+ customizable internal audit director resume templates

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