How To Become A Summer Camp Director: What It Is and Career Path

What is a summer camp director and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a summer camp director. For example, did you know that they make an average of $17.74 an hour? That's $36,909 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 10% and produce 28,100 job opportunities across the U.S.

ScoreSummer Camp DirectorUS Average

Salary

2.9

Avg. Salary $36,909

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

9.1

Growth rate 10%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

10.0

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.67%

Asian 4.99%

Black or African American 13.56%

Hispanic or Latino 14.50%

Unknown 5.56%

White 60.72%

Gender

female 61.66%

male 38.34%

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

9.1

Stress level is very high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

7.9

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

7.5

Work life balance is good

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a summer camp director

Explore summer camp director education requirements

Most common summer camp director degrees

Bachelor's

69.9 %

Master's

12.0 %

Associate

11.9 %

Start to develop specific summer camp director skills

Skills	Percentages
CPR	22.56%
Kids	10.91%
Role Model	10.63%
Safety Procedures	9.88%
Conflict Resolution	5.89%

Complete relevant summer camp director training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New summer camp 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 a summer camp director based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real summer camp director resumes.

Research summer camp director duties and responsibilities

Manage and supervise the development and execution of program, including fiscal oversight, funding initiatives, and new partnerships.
Administer CPR and first aid when need.
Assist in creating an environment that protects the children, particularly with food allergies
Work within any classroom, infant through school-age kids that need an assistant teacher to meet DPW ratio.

Get summer camp director experience

Generally, it takes 2-4 years to become a summer camp director. The most common roles before becoming a summer camp director include teacher, internship team lead and substitute teacher.

Prepare your summer camp director resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your summer camp 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 a summer camp 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 summer camp director resume templates

Build a professional summer camp director 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 summer camp director resume.