How to land 2024's top in-demand tech leadership roles

You’ve been in tech for about a decade, and you’re looking to rise beyond the rank of a regular manager and take a bite at a C-level position. But since you like to do your research (kudos to you, also a great quality in management) you’ve found yourself here looking for some advice on what roles to go for and what skills you need.

You’ve come to the right place. In this article, we’ve created a list of the top C-level positions in tech right now. These rankings are based on a meta-analysis of industry research sourced from thousands of tech professionals across the United States. Keep in mind that salary ranges will differ depending on your region, and the figures below are in USD.

NOTE: For the below charts, Novice means someone starting out in this role (Bottom 25%), Professional means those well-adjusted to this role (50%), and Expert means someone who is highly experienced and exceptional in this position (75%).

1. Chief AI Officer (CAIO)

Yes, this is a real role, and not someone mangling a goodbye in Italian. CAIO is the hottest new role in tech, and fast becoming a new staple in the C-suite. Companies across the board are trying to leverage AI for a wide range of business functions, and someone needs to make this happen. As such, compensation packages for CAIO roles can reach well above $1 million according to Forbes research. 

Still, you might be thinking “doesn’t a CTO handle technology?” And yes, historically this was part of a CTO’s remit (and still is in some companies). However, many organizations are finding they need a dedicated person to handle strategic AI rollout. According to Pluralsight’s latest AI Skills report, while 55% of organizations have plans to formally adopt AI, only 12% of IT professionals have any experience working with AI. On top of this, Foundry research shows only 34% of IT-decision makers have the necessary data and technology in place for effective AI implementation. 

The solution? Get a CAIO, who can focus entirely on getting AI actioned.

What does a CAIO role look like?

As a CAIO, you’re responsible for strategically integrating AI to perform business operations and drive competitive advantage. You need to have an eye on the present advances of AI that you can leverage. At the same time, you need to be a futurist, keeping a lookout on where the industry is going and how you can keep your organization ahead of the pack by using AI to drive business growth, streamline operations, and improve decision-making.

What’s the average salary for a CAIO?

• Novice: $111k

• Seasoned: $259k

• Expert: $1.2m

Note that these wages are highly determined by your location. For instance, if you’re located in San Jose, California, the average salary for a CAIO is actually $512k, according to industry research (which is 97% higher than the US average).

Day-to-day duties of a CAIO

• Creating strategies for integrating AI into business operations

• Identifying relevant AI technologies

• Overseeing the implementation and integration of AI solutions

• Help the business adopt a more data-driven approach to decision making through AI

• Ensuring ethical and safe AI use

What qualifications do you need as a CAIO?

You need a strong background in business processes, to have strong soft skills (such as leadership, stakeholder management, and project management), and know all about the latest AI tools. 

No coding skills are required, as your role is more about understanding technology rather than implementing it, and you are more focused on business processes and strategy. Having a strong understanding of the fundamentals is important, but you don’t need to know the particulars of Bayesian deep learning techniques.

A typical skill list for a CAIO

• Leadership skills: Yes, kind of a given for any C-level position. If you’re a regular manager, you need to demonstrate you can go above and beyond this, showing the skills needed to communicate at an executive level and really take the initiative.

• Continuous learning and critical thinking: Another must. You’re keeping on top of all the AI trends, so you’ll be constantly drinking from the firehose. Every week, there’s a new AI product announcement, research report released, or jailbreak discovered. You’ll need to evaluate each one critically to see if it’s a value-add to your business.

• Holistic, organizational thinking: You need to be able to think about the organization as a whole, as well as dive deep into different departments, all to know where best to implement AI. Business acumen is invaluable for this role.

• Change management: You’ll need a proven background in leading an organization through changes associated with technology integration (ideally AI) and ensuring smooth transitions.

• Project management: You’ll need to be able to oversee multiple AI projects simultaneously and ensure they are completed on time and within budget.

• Risk management and ethical judgment: You’ll need to identify particular risks associated with AI and adopt mitigation strategies. You’ll also need to understand where AI can be misused and ensure responsible use.

2. Chief Information Officer (CIO)

The CIO role is consistently one of the best-paying tech roles, and it’s more commonplace than the CAIO position. Much like the salary packet, the role responsibilities for a CIO are also sizable.

What does a CIO role look like?

As a CIO, you’re responsible for developing and executing an organization’s entire IT strategy and overseeing all of its IT staff. That’s the software, hardware, and infrastructure, as well as managing the organization’s data. 

What’s the average salary for a CIO?

• Novice: $169k

• Seasoned: $210k

• Expert: $252k

Day-to-day duties

• Approving IT equipment purchases

• Delegating tasks to boost productivity

• Managing the IT department and staff

• Overseeing network and system implementations

• Developing relationships with IT vendors

• Staying updated on industry trends and technologies

• Strategizing and creating solutions for company needs

• Collaborating with executives to implement best practices

What qualifications do you need?

Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need to have IT experience or to have been an IT Director to get this role (although that experience is helpful in selling yourself as someone who understands the process). What matters are your soft skills and having at least a decade or two of experience you can use to demonstrate those skills.

Some organizations will want you to have a bachelor’s or master’s degree, but it doesn’t necessarily need to be a tech degree. It can be in business or accounting, for example. Again, this matters far less than your soft skills and your applicable experience.

A typical skill list for a CIO

• Leadership skills: A must. You’re going to have to show you can go above and beyond just being a line manager, showing a deep understanding of executive leadership and taking the initiative.

• Communication: Proven ability to communicate verbally, like giving presentations, getting a message across to a whole organization, and being able to listen and deal with different personalities.

• Organization: You’re going to need to be able to time manage like a boss, literally. You’ll be managing multiple projects across different teams and departments.

• Technical depth: You need to have a sound understanding of networks and architecture. The more you know, the better off you’ll be.

• Budgeting: You’ll be figuring out the whole department’s budget and making proper investments. 

• Project management: You’ll be overseeing department projects and encouraging people to action them. You’ll also need to put people in the right positions for maximum effectiveness.

• Risk management: The buck stops with you. You’ll need to be able to identify potential areas where cybersecurity breaches can happen, and put mitigation measures in place.

• Relationship building: You’ll be talking to other executives, trying to balance the different objectives of the organization and keeping things flowing.

• Team development: You’re no good without a great team to support you, so you’ll need to build one, then focus on getting even better over time.

• Vendor management: Not everything can be done in house, especially in IT, so you’ll need to be well-versed in contract negotiations, service-level agreements (SLAs), and when to think outside the box to get a vendor who provides the best solution.

Additionally, you’re going to want to have an entrepreneurial bent. The reason for this is you’ll want to seek out new technology and opportunities, instead of being the CIO who’s just holding the fort when it comes to the organization’s IT infrastructure. 

What to expect starting as a CIO

For a great breakdown of what starting out as a CIO looks like, I’d highly recommend checking out this article by Richard Harpur: “Your first 60 days as a CIO.” He’s had an incredible career from software development, project management, through to C-level roles such as CEO, CIO, and CISO, and is rated and ranked in Ireland’s top CIOs—you can’t get much better advice than that.

3. Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)

This is considered the highest role you can get in the field of cybersecurity, and a lot of cybersecurity managers get stuck just short of achieving it. It’s a critical role in any organization, and as such, it pays almost as well as a CIO. 

Alternate terms for this role are Chief Security Officer (CSO). Additionally, sometimes an organization will forgo a CISO role and just have the CIO take this responsibility, delegating responsibilities down to the director level.

What does a CISO role look like?

As a CISO, you’re responsible for developing, implementing, and monitoring your organization’s security architecture. You’re often working alongside the CIO to make sure you’re balancing the need to keep everything secure while still maintaining accessibility for clients and stakeholders—a large part of your role will be managing this common point of contention.

What’s the average salary for a CISO?

• Novice: $147k

• Seasoned: $186k

• Expert: $283k

Day-to-day CISO duties

• Managing data security

• Cyber intelligence and reporting

• Data protection and fraud prevention

• Designing and maintaining security architecture

• Software and program expertise

• System maintenance

• User management

• Stakeholder management

• Ensuring regulatory compliance

What qualifications do you need as a CISO?

To succeed as a CISO, you’ll need a mix of technical and soft skills. Most people who enter this role have the ability to demonstrate strong technical knowledge, either from industry experience or industry-recognized qualifications, or a combination of both. 

The journey to becoming a CISO can start anywhere. There are people who have worked to this position after starting as a janitor or Air Force pilot. They acquired the technical skills through study and other roles, then sought out opportunities to get their foot in the door and work upwards. Like many C-level roles, your demonstrable soft skills are crucial.

A typical skill list for a CISO

• Leadership skills: A must. You’re going to have to show you can go above and beyond just being a line manager, showing a deep understanding of executive leadership and taking the initiative. You’re also going to need to lead the way when it comes to getting an entire company to buy into best-practice cybersecurity.

• Research and analysis: Your analytical skills need to be highly tuned. You’ll be gathering and recording a lot of data, analyzing information, assessing threats, and suggesting appropriate solutions. 

• Critical thinking and problem solving: A must for any IT role, but pivotal in a CISO role. You’ll need to question everything—a good default state for cybersec in general—and amp this up to eleven when it comes to assessing threats and solutions. You’ll also need to figure out ways to mitigate losses should the worst happen, and the company is breached.

• Technical depth: You can’t really be a CISO if you don’t understand what a DDOS attack is. You’ll need to have broad technical knowledge regarding programming, system administration, security technologies, and best practices. While your staff will be handling a lot of this, you need to be able to speak a common language.

• Budgeting: You’ll be figuring out the whole department’s budget and making proper investments. 

• Organization: You’re going to be dealing with a firehose of information, and only so many hours in the day to digest it. On top of that, you’ll be managing and tracking tasks, projects, schedules, and deadlines. All of this to stop the whole organization from burning down should disaster strike.

• Communication: You’ll be sitting on top of a lot of complex technical information and have to communicate it in a way a 10th grader can understand. Your ability to communicate verbally and in writing, breaking things down to their most digestible elements, will be a must.

The most critical soft skill for a CISO is a desire for continuous learning. This is key for all cybersecurity roles, but more so for being a CISO, as you’ll want to be learning about new advancements in security technologies and the latest threats.

If you don’t already have it, I would strongly recommend getting your Certified Information Security Professional, or CISSP certification. Pluralsight has a CISSP cert training course by Kevin Henry, which is good value—I’ve personally done his courses, and found them easy to digest and smooth listening. You can plug in your headphones and do this one while going about your work (or for me, running on the treadmill.)

4. Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

The CTO role is the highest possible position in a software development or cloud computing career, short of running your own tech company. The salary is on par with a CISO, but this is just a smidgeon lower on the list due to the cybersecurity professional shortage in 2024.

What does a CTO role look like?

As a CTO, you’re responsible for managing the use of technology in an organization both internally and externally to drive its success. This is a broad remit that encompasses all aspects of technology, including:

• Solving business problems: Leveraging technology to address business challenges and improve processes.

• Assessing new technologies: Evaluating and adopting new technologies to gain a competitive edge.

• Managing development and research pipelines: Overseeing the development of new products and research initiatives.

• Data security and network maintenance: Ensuring data security and maintaining the company’s IT infrastructure.

• Strategic vision: Driving the overall technological direction and innovation within the company.

What’s the average salary for a CTO?

• Novice: $148k

• Seasoned: $185k

• Expert: $283k

Day-to-day CTO duties

• Managing technology usage

• Ensuring and improving process efficiency

• Managing data security and maintaining the company's network

• Assessing new technologies

• Managing development and research timelines

• Managing and mentoring large teams

• Working with big data sets

• Tracking KPIs and IT budgets

• Gathering stakeholder feedback and ensuring a customer-focused approach

What qualifications do you need?

It can take a decade or two to reach the CTO stage, and the technical requirements tend to be higher than other C-level IT roles. It generally is expected that you have a bachelor’s in computer science, data science, cybersecurity, IT, or a similar field. 

Qualifications in business administration, communications, or marketing are also looked favorably upon, since CTOs can be involved in customer relations and sales due to their proximity to development and research.

Work experience in an IT-related field is generally expected, as many CTOs have spent time as a software developer or security engineer. Having a list of industry-recognized certifications is also a boon, as it shows you’re not only knowledgeable in these areas but also keeping on top of current technologies.

A typical skill list for a CTO

• Leadership skills: A must. You’re going to have to show you can go above and beyond just being a line manager, showing a deep understanding of executive leadership and taking the initiative.

• Decision-making skills: You’re the one ultimately making the call on what emerging technologies to adopt, where to spend development time, and what existing technologies to keep investing in. You need to be confident in making the call and aware that your decisions can impact the performance of an entire organization.

• Organization: Like any C-level role, you’re in charge of a whole department. Technology can be complex, and you’re going to have to demonstrate strategic planning, time management, goal setting, and delegation to keep things running smoothly.

• Technical depth: Technology is literally in your title, so you need to have a strong grasp of it. This will help inform your decision making and communicate with your department.

• Budgeting: You’ll be figuring out the whole department’s budget and making proper investments. 

• Business skills: You need to think at a holistic level about how the company needs to operate to succeed, and how technology is going to help your organization achieve that.

• Communication: You’re a technical professional who’s got to communicate to others who don’t have the deep understanding of tech that you do. You’ll need to be able to break things down so people can understand them, both in a verbal and written format.

For a CTO, the most crucial skills are decision making, continuous learning, and leadership skills. It’s an incredibly rewarding role where you can have a massive say on the success of your organization, but with the double-edged sword that you need to be secure in this responsibility. 

If you want to improve your skills as a technology manager, I recommend checking out Pluralsight’s “Being a Technology Manager” pathway. The whole path is about 56 hours, but it’s packed full of value and broken into digestible on-demand courses (don’t think you have to do it all at once.) You can pick and choose the parts you want to dive into based on where you want to strengthen your skills, or listen to it while doing something else.

5. Chief Data Officer (CDO)

At the start of 2024, we predicted that data was going to rise to critical importance this year, given it’s the foundation for proper AI implementation (and sound business decision making). As such, it’s not surprising to see it in the top five of C-level tech roles. Having a CDO is more common in organizations that have sensitive data requirements such as financial companies, health care organizations, technology organizations, and not for profits.

Note that “CDO” can also mean “Chief Delivery Officer,” but for the purposes of this article, the D stands for Data.

What does a CDO role look like?

As a CDO, you’re responsible for overseeing an organization’s data operations and security—and more than anyone, you understand that data is the lifeblood of a business. You manage the teams that handle and analyze this data, and empower other teams and departments with it. You also have a say in the technology used for data storage and handling, as well as dealing with ethical and compliant data use.

Depending on your organization, you’ll also be entrusted with handling some very sensitive data. You’ll be the one with the keys to the kingdom, so to speak. That means you may need to have the right security clearance (for government or military roles) and a proven history of acting ethically when handling similar information.

What’s the average salary for a CDO?

• Novice: $122k

• Seasoned: $155k

• Expert: $202k

Day-to-day CDO duties

• Determining strategies for how your organization, stores, accesses, and uses data

• Enforcing data protection protocols

• Establishing governance over who owns each data type, access levels, and measuring data quality

• Improving data quality

• Exploring new technology for data management

• Collaborating with other executives

What qualifications do you need?

A CDO needs to have a deep understanding of data, which can come from a significant background in data-related roles or industry-recognized certifications and degrees. They also need to have a proven background in business administration—again, practical or academic—in order to prove you have the ability to understand an organization’s structure and apply business principles to data organization.

A background in computer science and information technology can help inform decisions around the technology you use for data governance and strategy that best fit your organization.

A typical skill list for a CDO

• Leadership skills: Getting sick of seeing this at the top of every C-level skill list yet? Again, this is the skill you need to have absolutely locked down to secure a CDO role.

• Passionate about data: You are the data champion, and while you don’t need to delve into data as deep as, say, a data analyst, you need to be in awe of the power of data, and realize its potential for empowering an organization and day-to-day operations.

• Continuous learning: You need to be curious about the latest developments, and want to push the limits of what data can do for the business. This needs to filter down to your department as a whole.

• Communication and storytelling: It’s no good reading the trends and not being able to communicate them to anyone. More than any other C-level role, you need to be the person who can bring data to life, turning numbers in spreadsheets into clear narratives.

• Teamwork and stakeholder engagement: By definition, data roles are there to empower the rest of the business. This means you need to be able to work with fellow C-suite executives, line-of-business, executives, outside experts, and others. 

• Risk and governance: There’s a lot at stake when it comes to data, so you need to be constantly able to assess risk and outline strategies for mitigating those risks.

Next steps: Make a list and work on your skill gaps

Now that you’ve got a list of all the core skills you need for your dream C-level role, note down any areas you feel you could strengthen, and then try to find ways to close that gap. Depending on the skill in question, you could do this by:

• Attending specialized leadership courses or workshops

• Seeking mentorship from someone who is currently in a C-level position

• Gaining practical experience in high-impact stretch assignments

• Taking on cross-functional roles

• Seeking opportunities for interim executive roles

• Reading relevant industry publications

• Attending industry conferences and leadership summits like RSAC, AWS re:Invent, etc

• Obtaining business certifications

I’d also recommend checking out Pluralsight’s dedicated learning path on “Growing your career in technology.” To access it, you can sign up for a free 10-day trial, but the whole path only takes 29 hours. That’s more than enough time to dive in and out with no commitment. If you’re busy with your day job, time this for a weekend or break period, or select which classes appeal the most to you.

I’d say “good luck” with getting that C-level job, but I already know you’re going to get it, no luck required. I believe in you!

Report methodology

The figures above are a meta-analysis of 2024 salary figures from Robert Half, Indeed.com, Glassdoor.com, and Talent.com, sourced from thousands of respondents. These included small, midsize and large private, publicly listed, and public sector organizations across the United States.