CX Salaries: How Much Does Working in Customer Experience Pay?

Customer experience (CX) is a rising field, as it has been exploding over the past few years. With that in mind, you might be wondering about CX salaries. How much does a research analyst make? What would the Head of CX’s salary be? It’s important to know your worth and get the salary you deserve, whether you’re an entry-level market researcher or a senior research analyst. Anyone in a CX position is very valuable thanks to the skills and insights they can provide, and around the globe there’s a trend of rising salaries and benefits that might peak your interest.

Additionally, given the ongoing “Great Resignation,” it’s important to remember that droves of employees have been leaving their jobs, and oftentimes pay is not the main reason for such a drastic decision. Company culture, growth opportunities, and the popular need for more flexibility are also important factors to keep in mind when joining a new company. 

What Are the Most Common CX Positions?

CX isn’t a linear field, there are many side branches with specializations from digital methods to front-facing CX needs. Each is necessary if you want to get a well-rounded CX team, however each business will have different needs and therefore different skill sets across teams. Overall, these are some of the most common CX-specific positions:

• CX Digital Specialist
• CX Analyst
• CX Associate
• Head of CX
• Director of Customer Experience

The Digital Specialist deals with the digital side of things, emails, apps, websites etc. They’re more at home with computers than customers. Consumer Analysts work with data and analytics, keeping things flowing in the background. The CX Associate, the entry level position and jack of all trades types, have more direct contact with customers than the other two. In general, the two specialized groups will make more than the associate would, owing to the needed skill set and often more experience as a result. These positions can be at varying levels of seniority, all the way from entry level to upper management.

Oftentimes, senior-level customer experience positions are paired with roles related to digital transformation.

What The Data on CX Salaries Shows

While the specializations mentioned above can have an impact on your salary, seniority and experience is the key. Senior CX positions offer far more than junior ones, owing to the insights gained while working in the field. CX isn’t something that you can learn from a textbook, as it’s dynamic and therefore constantly evolving. With that in mind, let’s dive into the data.

CX Associate Salary

A CX Associate, the entry level position, can expect to earn around USD $39K a year in North America. This is the average of course, with what you get being dependent on experience. A rough estimate for starting salaries is around USD $18k, some earning as high as USD $50K.

The rest of the world is slightly more generous, with the UK offering an average of almost £20K a year. 

Bear in mind however, that these numbers are not adjusted for power of purchase or cost of living, and as such cannot be taken at purely face value.

CX Analyst Salary

The CX analyst, data focused and far more number-crunching than the associate, can expect to earn an average of USD $70K a year for full-time work in North America. Owing to the specialized nature of their job they can often be found in higher positions up the career ladder, and as such would require much more experience than an entry-level position. 

Elsewhere in the world, the UK offers £35k on average, interestingly lower than their NA counterpart. This data is an average of course, and is likely skewed by the high number of mega-rich organizations with the pockets to hire the best from all over the world.

CX Manager Salary

A CX manager, the person in charge of a CX team (or in the case of smaller organizations, the entire department), using resources available to them to direct CX efforts. They naturally have a higher salary on average than the associates below them. North America offers an average of USD $73k a year, which is actually lower than that of a specialized consumer analyst. 

The UK offers £37k, however this figure likely represents the smaller scale of many businesses in the UK compared to North America, and therefore comes with less responsibilities.

In short, if you want to make the big bucks, head to the two CX hubs of the USA, California and New York.

Digital CX Manager Salary

A digital CX manager is exactly what it says on the tin, a CX manager with a digital flair. This type of work is often more intensive and more demanding than customer-facing CX, owing to the use of data and analytics in order to make decisions. Digital managers can be in charge of entire departments or merely teams within them.

In North America, an average salary of USD $110k per year is found, again showing the higher skill requirements for the position. 

In the UK, a salary of around USD $63k equivalent can be found. Once again this is likely due to the relative size of the organizations, with managers in NA earning more simply because their teams or departments are larger.

CX Director Salary

A CX director is one of the most senior positions on this list, with a higher salary on average. North America offers USD $103k and the UK £101k, representative of the position being above that of managerial level. Owing to the nature of the position requiring a large department with many teams the data from the UK is small compared to that of North America, which likely accounts for the sudden decrease in gap between the two. 

In short, only the big corporations with large CX departments will have this position, leading to salaries naturally being skewed towards the higher end of the scale. 

Head of Customer Experience Salary

In the US, this position can expect to earn a base salary of USD $130k a year, with the UK coming behind at £71k. This is a very senior role indeed, one in which you’ll be expected to set the direction of CX for your entire organization and understand deeply what it is you’re trying to achieve.

Chief Customer Officer Salary

While not strictly entirely CX based, a CCO will have heavy involvement with the CX department and their techniques. The US offers an average of over USD $200k, with the UK offering £107k, a similar amount to their CX directors. This can once again be mostly attributed to the differing sizes of organizations within Europe/North America, as well as a smaller sample size for the UK owing to there being fewer corporations based there.

Conclusion

To summarize, while higher positions do grant higher salaries, it’s specializations and being able to use the necessary CX tools that will really get you the leg up. There aren’t many managerial positions available compared to associate or analyst ones, but specializing and knowing how to use the data that’s pulled from your interactions with customers will make you far more valuable without waiting for a promotion to become available.

Simone Somekh

Simone Somekh is a New York-based writer and editor who specializes in marketing and communications for B2B SaaS companies. He teaches Communications at Touro College and he is the author of an award-winning novel published in four languages.