BarkerGilmore just released its 2026 Chief Compliance Officer Compensation Report, which analyzes current Chief Compliance Officer compensation, executive mobility, and other trends across the marketplace.
The report from the executive search firm specializing in legal and compliance leadership examines this compensation data across public, private, and nonprofit organizations, including base salary, annual bonus, long-term incentives, and total compensation by company revenue size.
As BarkerGilmore notes in its press release about the report, “the findings reveal a highly talent-constrained market where most compliance leaders are not actively pursuing new opportunities, creating ongoing recruitment, retention, and succession planning challenges for organizations seeking experienced executive talent.”
In keeping with that finding, the survey showed that nearly two-thirds (62%) of respondents indicate a low or very low likelihood of changing employers.
Key findings
Among the report’s key findings were the following:
- Median Chief Compliance Officer compensation increased from $500,000 to $638,000 among public companies as revenue grows from under $500m to more than $5 billion.
- Median Chief Compliance Officer compensation increased from $380,000 to $771,000 among private companies as revenue grows from under $500m to more than $5 billion.
- Total compensation exceeded $1.2m at the 90th percentile among Chief Compliance Officers at public companies with revenue above $5 billion.
- Among public companies above $5 billion in revenue, median long-term incentive compensation reached $163,000.
- Among private companies above $5 billion in revenue, median long-term incentive compensation reached $188,000.
- Female respondents accounted for 38% of the survey population and reported higher average total compensation than male respondents. Average total compensation for female respondents reached approximately $530,000 compared to $495,000 for male respondents.
Survey details
BarkerGilmore conducted its online survey in March 2026 to gather Chief Compliance Officers’ compensation from 2025
BarkerGilmore said it conducted a survey of “a random sample of compliance professionals at various seniority levels within different-sized public, private, and nonprofit organizations across the United States.” The respondents answered multiple-choice and open-ended questions and more than 250 chief compliance officers from various industries participated. The data is self-reported, BarkerGilmore said.
The majority of employers represented were private ones (60%), with 31% being public and 9% being nonprofit entities. The majority of respondents worked at organizations with revenue under $500m per year (39%), with the next-highest percentage coming from those in the $1 to $5 billion range.
Far more men responded to the survey; 62% were male and 38% were female.