Global Coaching Survey from ICF

COACH PRACTITIONERS
• Compared with 2015, the proportion of coach practitioners who identify Business Coaching (i.e., coach practitioners who
identified their main area of coaching as Leadership Coaching, Executive Coaching, Business/Organization Coaching or
Small Business Coaching) as their main specialty increased by three percentage points, up from 62% in 2016 to 65% in
2019. The change was driven by the rise in the proportion of coaches citing Leadership Coaching as their main specialty, up
from 25% in 2015 to 30% in 2019.
• Male coach practitioners are more likely to have a business specialty (74% compared with 61% of female coach practitioners).
• A little under one in five coach practitioners (17%) work as both an internal and external coach practitioner. On average, they
devote a higher proportion of their time to their internal coaching practice (54%).
• Almost all coach practitioners (94%) offer services in addition to coaching. Most frequently, coach practitioners also offer
consulting (60%), training (60%) and/or facilitation services (54%).
• The overall mix of clients served by coach practitioners has remained broadly unchanged since 2015. A little over one
in two coach practitioners said their clients are mostly managers (27%) or executives (25%); the combined total of 52% is
identical to the position in 2015. Similarly, the proportion coaching personal clients was unchanged at 19%.
• The mix of clients varies with coach practitioners’ attributes, including: the region in which they live, their main area of
coaching, coaching experience, age, gender and whether they work as an external or internal coach practitioner.
• The split between primary and sponsored clients is strongly related to the number of years coaching. The sponsored share
ranges from 25% among coach practitioners with less than one year of experience to 64% for coach practitioners with ten
or more years of experience.
• Among coach practitioners with a business specialty, 40% of engagements are typically for seven or more months,
compared with 28% for coach practitioners with a non-business specialty.
• The typical coaching client is between 35 and 44 years old (37%). A little under one in three clients (30%) are in the 45–54
age range. Around one in four (24%) are under 35 years old.
• Coach practitioners most frequently engage with their clients in person. Almost one in four (24%) always engage on that
basis while close to one in two (48%) do so frequently. The use of audio-video platforms has doubled in the past four years,
from 24% in 2015 to 48% in 2019.
• The revenue/income received from coaching is linked to a variety of factors, including attributes of the coach practitioner,
the range and mix of services offered, and client attributes. Years of experience continues to be the most important
predictor of a coach’s income/revenue from coaching.

MANAGERS AND LEADERS USING
COACHING SKILLS
• The majority of managers/leaders using coaching skills (61%) have a third-level (i.e., master’s or doctoral) education, one in
three (34%) are educated to secondary level (i.e., bachelor’s degree).
• There has been a sharp rise among managers/leaders using coaching skills in the strength of agreement that clients expect
their coaches to be certified/credentialed. The proportion of respondents who strongly agree rose from 37% in 2015 to 55%
in 2019.
• The proportion of managers/leaders with 200 or more hours of coach training varies widely by region, from 39% in Latin
America and the Caribbean to 14% in the Middle East and Asia.
• Almost three in four managers/leaders (74%) said they plan to enroll in additional coach-specific training in the next 12 months.
• Among those planning to enroll in additional training, a little over one in two (52%) said they wanted to enhance their
coaching skills. The remaining 48% said they wanted to become a coach practitioner, with most intending to become a
hybrid external and internal coach practitioner.
• Almost one in two managers/leaders (48%) are members of professional organizations.
• Perspectives on coaching differ across the regions. Almost two in three (65%) managers/leaders in Western Europe and the
Middle East and Africa consider coaching to be a skillset. In Latin America and the Caribbean, 43% view coaching as a profession.
• Survey respondents were asked what they perceive to be the top three potential obstacles to building a strong coaching
culture inside an organization. The top three obstacles identified were:
• Limited support from senior leaders (50%).
• Inability to measure impact of coaching (42%).
• Lack of budget for coaching activities (38%).
• There was a considerable degree of consensus across all main demographics and by region regarding the top three obstacles.