Rookie coaches’ hourly rates have skyrocketed, finds a survey of more than 700 executive coaches and other professionals from around 65 countries.
Coaches with up to two years’ experience are earning an all-time high of $295 USD per hour, nearly $100 per hour more than just two years ago, according to respondents to Sherpa’s 14th annual Executive Coaching Survey.
Hourly earnings for executive coaches are $398 (up from $386 last year and $352 in 2017), for business coaches: $251 per hour (down from last year’s average of $279) and for life coaches: $208 (an increase over last year’s $190 hourly rate). Earnings for coaches in the 10-15 year bracket still hover at about $100,000 per year. Those in business 15 years and longer are averaging close to $150,000 annually from coaching, and are charging over $450 per hour.
More than 70% of services from life, wellness and personal coaches are paid directly by clients, and more than 40% of business coaching clients pay for themselves. Executive coaches get paid by their clients’ employer more than 85% of the time.
About two-thirds of respondents to the survey continue to expect demand for coaching to increase, with 23% expecting a ‘substantial’ increase. About a quarter anticipate that demand will stay the same. Just a few have no opinion or expect a decrease.
In terms of access to coaching, nearly half of all UK coaching goes to senior managers, higher than elsewhere. The data for South Africa mirrors North America, with a third going to all levels. Southern regions of the US are the most likely to see coaching at all levels. Canada is very evenly split, with 35% of coaching going to top-line executives, 30% to senior managers and 30% to all levels.
For the first time, more coaching is done via video (35%, up from 19% in 2012) than in person (35%, down from 45% in 2012).
The rationale for receiving executive coaching now tends to be leadership development, compared to behavioural problems in 2006.
Some 71% of respondents work with strengths-based coaching and 29% weaknesses-based (Sherpa’s own training falls into the latter category). External coaches (73%) and women (76%) are more likely to work with a strengths-based approach than internal coaches (63%) and men (67%). HR and training professionals are 25% more likely than coaches to favour a weaknesses-orientated approach.
UK and South African coaches tend strongly towards strengths while more weaknesses coaches are found in Canada and midwest US. Some 25% of weakness-focused coaches earn more than $500 USD per hour compared to 16% of strengths coaches.
The survey for the first time reviews the successes and failures of mentoring programmes. Only 37% of organisations have a programme in place and only 11% of those are rated as excellent. That means that only about 4% of businesses have an excellent mentoring programme. More than 40% rate their programmes poorly, and most organisations (73%) don’t usually include mentoring in performance reviews.
Women remain the majority in executive coaching: 57% of executive coaches are female, with a similar female-to-male ratio in life coaching and HR.
Seventy per cent of respondents are executive coaches, with other respondents identifying as business coaches, clients, HR and training professionals, and professionals interested in leadership development.