Chief Information Officer
A chief information officer sets an organisation's technology strategy and runs the IT function that delivers it, from core systems and data to cybersecurity.
- Median salary
- $172,100
4.0%vs last year, before tax
- People employed
- 7,300
2.8%vs last year
- Projected growth
- +25.5%
to 2035
- AI exposure*
- Moderate
- automation risk
- Average hours
- 47/wk
+7h vs all jobs
- Shortage status
- Not in shortage
national
Chief information officers sit on the executive team, usually reporting to the chief executive or the board, and are accountable for the systems the organisation depends on, from core infrastructure to cybersecurity and enterprise software. The role is often confused with the chief technology officer, but a CIO's focus is the technology that runs the business, including its data, risk and operations, rather than technology built for customers. In larger organisations a CIO leads an IT department of hundreds of staff with a budget to match.
How much do chief information officers earn?
The median full-time salary for a chief information officer is $172,100 per annum, before tax, up $35,800 since 2018.
Pay at this level is negotiated individually, so the size of the employer and the scale of its IT budget move the figure more than the job title does. Packages often include a short-term bonus or equity, which can widen the gap between base salary and total earnings. Public sector and listed company roles tend to follow formal bands, while private firms set their own.
What does a chief information officer do day to day?
The list below is what fills most weeks; the exact mix shifts with seniority and whatever stage the current work is at.
- Setting the multi-year technology strategy and deciding which investments come first
- Overseeing cybersecurity risk and making sure the organisation meets its data protection obligations
- Signing off on IT budgets, vendor contracts and major system implementations
- Leading the IT leadership team and building the technical capability underneath them
- Reporting technology risk, cost and capacity to the chief executive and board each quarter
What skills do chief information officers need?
Employers look for strategy development, risk and internal controls, project management, backed by Enterprise architecture platforms fluency and strong people leadership.
Specialist skills
- Strategy development
- Risk and internal controls
- Project management
Software and tools
- Enterprise architecture platforms
- Budget and financial management software
- Cybersecurity and risk dashboards
- ITSM platforms
- Board reporting tools
General skills
- People leadership
- Stakeholder management
Is the job growing?
About 7,300 people work as chief information officers in Australia, and employment is projected to grow 25.5% over the decade to 2035. That's very strong growth. Few roles in Australia are expanding this fast, and it points to solid demand for years to come.
How do you become a chief information officer?
Here's the path most chief information officers take, step by step.
- 1Start with a degree in information technology or a related field
A bachelor degree in information technology, computer science, information systems or business is the usual entry point, and about 42% of people in the role hold one. What matters later is the breadth of the technical foundation rather than the particular major.
- 2Build range across the IT function
Years spent in infrastructure, applications, service delivery and security give you the range a chief information officer needs, because the job covers all of them at once. A single deep specialism is harder to translate into the top technology job.
- 3Move into management and own a budget
Team leadership comes first, then a manager or head of technology role where you run a budget, deal with vendors and answer for service performance. That exposure to cost, contracts and risk is what executive recruiters look for.
- 4Fill the commercial gap with postgraduate study if you need it
Postgraduate study in business or technology management is one way to round out the finance and governance side; about 31% of chief information officers hold a postgraduate qualification. It is a common route for people whose career has been entirely technical.
- 5Take a first executive role, often in a smaller organisation
Mid-sized companies, government agencies and not-for-profits are where many people get their first chief information officer title, and the track record built there is what larger employers hire on.
Ready to apply as a chief information officer?
Whether you're working toward becoming a chief information officer or already are one and want a hand with the next step (sharpening your resume for ATS screening, tightening your cover letter, or knowing what you'll actually be asked at interview), here are examples grounded in this specific role, not generic templates.
What jobs can a chief information officer move to?
Moving into Chief Technology Officer typically comes with the biggest pay rise, worth $28,100 a year more on average.
| Move to | Typical pay change | Overlap | Retraining |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chief Technology Officer The chief information officer brings enterprise technology strategy and governance to the chief technology officer role, needing focused reskilling in engineering and product leadership. | +$28,100 | 44% | reskill |
| Chief Information Security Officer The chief information officer brings broad technology governance and risk awareness to the chief information security officer role, requiring focused security leadership reskilling. | +$28,100 | 42% | reskill |
| Chief Executive Officer The chief information officer brings technology strategy and operational leadership to the chief executive officer role, with little extra training.Known move | +$9,900 | 69% | minimal |
Moves are chosen from Jobs and Skills Australia's Data on Occupation Mobility, which follows income tax records between 2011-12 and 2020-21, together with entry requirements and skill overlap. A known move is one people were seen making in that data. Pay change compares median full-time pay for the two roles.
Who works as a chief information officer?
The typical chief information officer is 45 years old; 88% are men, 96% work full-time, and full-timers average 47 hours a week.
- 45
- Median age
- 12%
- Female share
- 96%
- Full-time
- +7h
- vs all-jobs avg
What's it like being a chief information officer?
The week is dominated by meetings, briefings and decisions rather than hands-on technical work, with the average full-time chief information officer working 47 hours. The job runs on a cycle of budget rounds, board reporting and project milestones, punctuated by the incidents that cannot wait. It suits people who are comfortable being accountable for outcomes they deliver through other people.
What people like
- You see how the whole organisation works. The role touches finance, operations, risk, customer service and legal, so you learn the shape of the business rather than one corner of it.
- Your decisions land at scale. Choosing a platform or funding a security program changes how thousands of people do their work, and the effects last for years.
- The work mixes people and technology. A large part of the job is persuading executives, negotiating with vendors and building a team, which suits people who do not want to spend the day at a keyboard.
- Technology keeps changing underneath you. Cloud platforms, data governance and AI mean the subject matter never stands still, and there is always something new to understand well enough to make a call on.
What people find hard
- You carry the consequences when systems fail. Outages, breaches and failed implementations end up with the chief information officer, often outside business hours and well beyond the parts of the work you directly control.
- Strategy is only as good as the budget. A plan that took months to build can be trimmed in a finance round or set aside when the organisation changes direction.
- Much of the week goes to meetings and persuasion. The people you need to bring along outnumber the people you manage, and progress depends on agreements reached in rooms rather than on technical work.
- Major rollouts stretch the calendar. Migrations and incident responses do not schedule themselves around a standard week, so quiet periods are hard to protect.
Based on our synthesis of professional-body surveys and public accounts of the role, not first-person verified reviews.
Which industries employ chief information officers?
Professional, Scientific and Technical Services employs the largest share of chief information officers, followed by Financial and Insurance Services.
Top employing industries
- 1Professional, Scientific and Technical Services
- 2Financial and Insurance Services
- 3Information Media and Telecommunications
Ranked by employment share; the source doesn't publish an exact percentage per industry.
| Bachelor degree | 42% | |
|---|---|---|
| Postgraduate | 31% | |
| Diploma / Advanced Diploma | 10.5% | |
| Year 12 or below | 10.1% | |
| Certificate III/IV | 3.8% |
Will AI replace chief information officers?
This is a mid-range role for automation: reporting, service monitoring and spend analysis are increasingly handled by dashboards and software, which trims the administrative load without changing who decides what the organisation does with technology. Strategy, vendor negotiation, risk appetite and leadership of the IT function are the parts of the job that stay with the person in the seat.
Share of typical working time by exposure level
- Leading the IT function and its peopleHiring, developing managers, handling restructures and keeping the technology team aligned behind a direction are the parts of the week that cannot be delegated to a system.35%low
- Setting technology strategy and investment prioritiesSoftware can model costs and vendor options, but deciding which projects get funded and which get dropped depends on the organisation's plans and appetite for risk.25%moderate
- Governing cybersecurity and data protection riskDetection tools flag threats, yet setting risk appetite, briefing the board and answering for a breach remain judgement calls made with the security and legal teams.25%low
- Tracking service performance and reporting IT metricsService dashboards already compile uptime, incident and spend figures automatically, so the chief information officer reads the exceptions rather than assembling the weekly pack.15%high
Moves least exposed to AI
These career moves from chief information officer work are rated low for AI exposure:
- Chief Executive Officer
High skill overlap (69%), little retraining to get there, and a low automation-risk profile.
Common questions about becoming a chief information officer
Straight answers to the questions people ask most.
How much does a chief information officer earn?
Full-time chief information officers earn a median of $172,100 per year before tax. Pay at this level is negotiated individually and reflects the employer's size and sector, plus whether the package includes a bonus or equity.
How do you become a chief information officer?
Most people arrive through a technology career with steadily wider management responsibility: a degree, a decade or more across different parts of IT, then roles leading teams, budgets and vendors. The step into the executive usually comes from a head of technology or IT director job, or from a chief information officer role in a smaller organisation. Experienced program managers and IT project managers also move across, though project managers often need to broaden into strategy first.
Is there demand for chief information officers?
Chief information officers are currently not in shortage, and employment is projected to grow 25.5% over the decade to 2035 over the decade. Because the occupation is small, that change adds a limited number of new positions in absolute terms, and openings also come from retirements and people moving on.
Will AI replace chief information officers?
AI is more likely to change the tools a chief information officer buys and manages than to remove the role. Service monitoring, spend analysis and routine reporting are already automated, which shifts time towards vendor decisions, risk and organisational change. Choosing what the organisation builds, buys or stops doing still needs someone who understands the whole business.
What does a chief information officer do next?
Some move into a chief executive role, which draws on the same operating and financial leadership and needs little extra training; chief executive officers earn $9,900 more on median. Others move to chief technology officer, trading enterprise governance for engineering and product leadership, which usually calls for focused reskilling.
How many hours does a chief information officer work?
Full-time chief information officers average 47 hours a week, and major rollouts or incidents push that higher. Most of the week goes to meetings, briefings and one-to-one conversations rather than hands-on technical work.
Related roles
- Chief Executive Officer
- Chief Technology Officer
- Chief Information Security Officer
- IT Project Manager
- Program Manager
- IT Operations Manager
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