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

What is an underwriting director and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

2 min read

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being an underwriting director. For example, did you know that they make an average of $52.42 an hour? That's $109,027 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 17% and produce 123,100 job opportunities across the U.S.

ScoreUnderwriting DirectorUS Average

Salary

7.8

Avg. Salary $109,027

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

9.5

Growth rate 17%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.5

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.34%

Asian 7.32%

Black or African American 7.83%

Hispanic or Latino 15.10%

Unknown 4.12%

White 65.30%

Gender

female 39.72%

male 60.28%

Age - 46

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 - 46

Stress level

9.5

Stress level is very high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

9.3

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

4.9

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become an underwriting director

Explore underwriting director education requirements

Most common underwriting director degrees

Bachelor's

71.1 %

Master's

13.4 %

Associate

9.9 %

Start to develop specific underwriting director skills

Skills	Percentages
Portfolio	10.89%
Underwriting Policy	10.83%
Product Development	10.03%
Life Insurance	7.80%
Underwriting Guidelines	7.19%

Complete relevant underwriting director training and internships

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

Research underwriting director duties and responsibilities

Supervise staff of 20-30 credit professionals managing an $80 - $100 million A/R portfolio consistently exceeding aging goals.
Create FHA platform, complete the required test cases to obtain non supervise lending designation.
Review of appeals; concluding and processing the finalization; communicating the adjustments to the original underwriter for educational purposes.
Develop underwriting training on ISO and proprietary forms and guidelines for implementation of company strategy.

Get underwriting director experience

Generally, it takes 6-8 years to become an underwriting director. The most common roles before becoming an underwriting director include underwriter, senior underwriter team lead and underwriting manager.

Prepare your underwriting director resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your underwriting 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 underwriting 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 underwriting director resume templates

Build a professional underwriting 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 underwriting director resume.