WHAT TO KNOW
Leadership roles were 16% of all CS roles shared in 2026.
Leadership roles beat 2025 every single month this year.
Median Leadership salaries range from $140,000 for Managers to $211,250 for VPs.
This is part of the State of the Customer Success Job Market Fall 2026 report.
95%
more Leadership roles from January to September 2026 than the same months of 2025. 511 vs. 262.
LEADERSHIP MARKET
Customer Success leadership jobs are up 95% in 2026
Customer Success leadership roles, from Manager to Director and VP, nearly doubled this year, growing even faster than CSM roles.
Leadership roles beat 2025 every single month this year. I found 511 Leadership roles from January to September 2026, compared to 262 in the same months of 2025, up 95%.
BY LEVEL
Customer Success leadership levels and salaries, from Manager to VP
Manager, Director and VP roles ask for very different experience and very different stories. The biggest jump is from Manager to Director, where you go from leading a team to owning the strategy.
I started segmenting the Job Drop (my twice-weekly list of remote Customer Success jobs) by level so you could more easily find the right roles and so that I could better track volume and salary changes over time.
5 to 8 years total · Usually including 2 to 3 years leading people, as a manager or team lead.
7 to 10 years total · Including real experience as a people leader, usually around 5 years.
10+ years total · Including years of leadership at the Director level or above.
A note on the level data. I started separating Leadership roles into levels on July 14, so the level-by-level numbers below cover about 11 weeks, July 14 to September 29. The year-over-year numbers above cover January to September 2026. Qualitative insights are based on a sample of 54 Leadership job descriptions pulled in September 2026. Percentages are rounded and meant to show patterns, not exact counts.
What's the market like for Managers of Customer Success?
YEARS OF EXPERIENCE
5 to 8 years
including 2 to 3 leading people
SALARY RANGE
$125K to $165K
Median $140,000
The median Manager of Customer Success salary is $140,000, with a salary range of $125K to $165K.
This category is where I put roles that manage a team of CSMs, or other customer-facing teams like onboarding or renewals. That includes Senior Manager and Team Lead roles when they manage people.
These roles are perfect for CS managers looking for their next team, or Senior Managers ready to grow their scope.
Manager roles bounced back in September, with 33 roles vs 20 in August, though July averaged more roles in fewer Drops.
Things you need to know if you're targeting Manager of Customer Success roles
You need leadership experience to get a leadership role. About 2 in 3 Manager postings require people-management experience, usually with years attached, and none of them are written for a first-time manager. There's no market right now for stepping into leadership without leadership experience. If you're trying to break into leadership, it needs to happen inside your company, not through a cold application.
You need to be fluent in AI, and able to bring your team along. About 1 in 3 Manager postings put AI in the requirements. Most want a hands-on user who can help the team adopt it: Sprout Social asks for "hands-on experience applying generative AI tools… to optimize personal and team productivity."
What's the market like for Directors & Heads of Customer Success?
YEARS OF EXPERIENCE
7 to 10 years
including about 5 leading people
SALARY RANGE
$155K to $206K
Median $182,500
The median Director & Head of Customer Success salary is $182,500, with a salary range of $155K to $206K.
This category is where I put roles that own a Customer Success function, either leading a large org at a bigger company or building one from scratch at a startup.
These roles are perfect for experienced CS leaders who have managed managers or a whole function, and can show the business results of the team they built.
Director & Head of roles were the busiest Leadership level, with 44 roles in September vs 32 in August.
Things you need to know if you're targeting Director or Head of Customer Success roles
This role's requirements are very different depending on the stage of the company. Director can mean leading the function at a large company or building the function from scratch at a startup, and the postings in this section split pretty evenly. The experience and stories you need for each are very different, so know which one you're going for.
You need to own the AI strategy. At Director, it's not just using AI tools or even building AI systems. It's seeing the whole system and workflow, and having a track record of AI as transformation. About 1 in 3 Director postings expect this. Blackbaud wants you to apply AI "to redesign workflows, segment the base, and scale coverage, not just as reporting tools," and Certinia wants someone who can see where AI fits into post-sales processes "rather than treating AI as a separate initiative."
What's the market like for VPs of Customer Success?
YEARS OF EXPERIENCE
10+ years
including years as a senior leader
SALARY RANGE
$195K to $240K
Median $211,250
The median VP of Customer Success salary is $211,250, with a salary range of $195K to $240K.
This category is where I put roles that own Customer Success at the executive level, usually across the whole post-sale team.
These roles are perfect for Directors and Heads of CS who have built and scaled a CS organization and owned retention and revenue targets.
VP roles are rare, with only 10 since July 14, and fewer each month. Treat these numbers as a small sample.
Things you need to know if you're targeting VP of Customer Success roles
VP hiring comes in waves. Going by job title, VP roles peaked before summer, with 9 in May and 9 in June. They almost disappeared in August and September, with just 2 a month, and they've started coming back in October. If you're searching at this level, a quiet month doesn't mean the market has dried up.
This role requires dedicated networking and outreach. At this level, you're probably not getting hired through a cold application. Most VP roles fill through networks and recruiters, so treat these postings as a signal of who's hiring.
About this report
Every quarter I grab the data of all jobs shared across the Job Drops and use it to inform how I’m thinking about the broader job market for Customer Success. In June, I presented the report in a live webinar. Today, I’m making the full report available to everyone.
Who put this together?
I’m Nicole St. Germain, I’m a former Director of Customer Success and I run Customer Success Jobs, a newsletter and community for Customer Success job seekers.
Where does this data come from?
Every week I share ~100 curated new jobs in Customer Success with my subscribers. I save every job I share into a database, and use it to calculate volume, salary ranges, and analyze the text of the job descriptions to understand what companies are looking for when they hire for Customer Success.
I only share US-based, remote, and salary-transparent jobs, which means that this data is not meant to be comprehensive, but a snapshot of the quality jobs on the market, and how that may be changing over time.
You can read more about my methodology in the State of the Customer Success Job Market, Fall 2026.
What's the Job Drop?
A Job Drop is the email I send 2x a week to my Subscribers. On Tuesday, I share all roles that were posted in the last 5 days, and on Thursday I share all roles that were posted in the last 24 hours.
Each Job Drop is broken up into categories across Customer Success: Mid-Career CSM, SMB & Digital CSM, Senior CSM, Strategic CSM, Associate, Break Into Success, Manager of Customer Success, Director & Head of Customer Success, VP of Customer Success, Operations, and Onboarding & Implementation.
Each Job Drop also has a section for roles based in Canada and Globally, but these roles are not included in this report or analysis.
Thursday’s Job Drops are free for all subscribers, and Tuesdays are for Insider subscribers only. Data shared in this report comes from all Job Drops.
What counts as a Leadership role?
This report covers Leadership roles: Manager, Director & Head of Customer Success, and VP. A role counts as Leadership when it manages people or owns a Customer Success function.
FALL 2026 REPORT
Explore the rest of the report
This is part of the State of the Customer Success Job Market, Fall 2026. Here's where to find the rest.
SALARY REPORT
Median salary for every Customer Success category and level, as of October 2026.
COMPANIES BY VERTICAL
My top 10 companies in every vertical that matters. For Insiders.
Find your next Leadership role
Every week I share ~100 curated new jobs in Customer Success with my subscribers, all US-based, remote, and salary-transparent.