How Do Employers Determine a CIO Salary?

What is an appropriate CIO salary and how do employers calculate that pay rate?

As business leaders, CIOs are responsible for leading a number of critical business activities, such as IT services management, digital transformation programs, and technology investments.

They are often required to manage multiple teams and departments.

In the modern organization, CIOs’ responsibilities have evolved quite a bit – they are often called upon to lead and execute initiatives critical to business strategy.

As a result, many CIOs are not only responsible for IT maintenance and management, they are also being held responsible for business outcomes. Factors such as these, as we’ll see below, play a role in the CIO’s salary and should be taken into account when evaluating a salary package.

Before examining such factors in detail, though, let’s look at salary ranges for CIOs in the United States.

CIO Salary Ranges

Average CIO salaries vary quite based on the source. These variations can result from the data sources being used, how that data is calculated, and the companies being surveyed, among other things.

Here are a few examples of average annual salaries:

• $174,896 (Glassdoor)
• $282,940 (Salary.com)
• $127, 057 (Indeed)
• $153,679 (ZipRecruiter)

It is, of course, possible to dive deeper into the data and gain a more granular picture based on other variables, such as location.

ZipRecruiter, for instance, further breaks down CIO salaries by state. The highest average salary is in Washington state, at $177,779, while the lowest is in North Carolina, pegged at an average of $112,074 per year.

Yet these salaries are, it should be noted, only averages. Salaries at the lower end can be under six figures, while those at the higher end may be more than half a million per year, as one article from CIO.com showed.

Naturally, there are a number of factors that come into play when organizations calculate salary packages. Among the most important is the job’s scope of responsibility.

What Are the Responsibilities of the Modern CIO?

CIOs’ responsibilities play a major role in the compensation package.

Yet those duties can vary significantly from company to company. It is important, therefore, to examine job descriptions carefully to determine whether a given company’s position is the right fit.

Common responsibilities include:

• Managing and maintaining IT infrastructure, systems, and technology
• Managing IT teams and personnel
• Implementing cybersecurity measures, protocols, and guidelines
• Overseeing the implementation of digital initiatives, such as digital transformation programs and digital adoption strategies
• Collaborating with other business leaders to develop the organization’s digital strategy

The scope of the CIO’s role will depend heavily on the organization itself (see below), as well as how the organization has delegated responsibilities within its IT function. An organization with a CTO, for instance, will allocate resources and delegate responsibilities differently from a company that does not.

In short, the role of the CIO in a company will be one of the largest variables impacting a salary package.

Yet there are quite a few other factors that come into play.

Let’s look at some of those now.

How Do Employers Decide on a CIO Salary Package?

Here are some of the key deciding factors that come into play when developing a CIO salary package:

• Past experience. Previous job experience naturally plays a role in the creation of any salary package, including CIO salary packages. CIOs with more experience – particularly experience that is relevant to the job in question – will typically be offered a higher pay rate.
• Education. Education can include both formal, accredited degrees, as well as certifications. In today’s fast-paced digital world, certifications are often very important for anyone working in the IT field. Naturally, the more relevant the certifications are to the job in question, the greater the impact they will have on the candidate’s ability to perform their job and, as a result, the salary.
• Skills. Job skills are another factor that directly affect income levels. While IT skills are fundamental to CIOs’ ability to perform their jobs, modern CIOs do more than manage IT services. They are also business leaders who, like other executives, are responsible for leading teams, designing projects, and executing business-critical initiatives.
• Job responsibilities. Generally speaking, CIOs are responsible for the same set of responsibilities, which includes managing IT systems and teams. However, in the modern enterprise, the role of the CIO is changing. CIOs are often called upon, for instance, to lead digital initiatives that are critical to business strategy. The more business outcomes they are responsible for, the more compensation they should receive.
• The type of organization. Salary will also depend on organizational characteristics, including the industry, the sector, the size of the organization, its profitability, and its attitude towards IT. A corporation in the private sector that depends on technology-driven innovation, for instance, will pay more than a small non-profit or a government position with fewer job responsibilities.

Factors such as these will all contribute to the organization’s compensation package. Though there is no way to predict with complete accuracy what a salary will be, these types of variables can act as a guide for those who want to learn more about becoming a CIO.