- Based on 532 Jobtrees users who were a Principal in their career, on average, they have 5.03 years of experience and 2 jobs prior to this one. They have spent a significant amount of time in this job before moving on 10.2 years on average and earn $219K per year on average in this more senior role.
- 3% of Jobtrees users moved to another job with this same title in their next career step. The most common career steps after Principal are Associate, Board Member and Observer.
- If you are looking for more ideas on potential career paths from this job, you should also consider Chief Executive Officer and President as they commonly lead to Principal as well. Find more insights below about this specific career path based on our Jobtrees users' experience.
Interactive Career Path Tool – Plan the path to your next job
All the insights below are based on Jobtrees users’ actual career paths, aggregated together, instantaneously, to show you the real and unique most common career progression for each role.
Explore the ways our users are moving between roles. Apply filters. Press all the buttons. You’ll be amazed at what you find out.
The roles above are the most common next steps in our users’ career paths.
Use the + button and watch the ‘branches grow’. It adds another level of potential career steps based on the most common paths taken by Jobtrees’ users.The roles below are the most common previous steps in our users’ career paths.
Use the + button and watch the ‘roots grow’. It adds another level of potential previous career steps based on the most common paths taken by Jobtrees’ users.Read insights on these paths here
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Understand more about the career path
How can I become a
- The most common career steps to get to Principal are Board Member, Director and Observer based on actual career paths reported to Jobtrees.
- Board Member, the most common step before Principal, is of similar seniority which is common to see in career paths. People will often move between jobs and roles at the same level as they explore new types and gain experience for more senior roles.
- While Board Member is the most common, there is no specific role leading to Principal that is an overwhelmingly common path.
- Another characteristic of the Principal career path is that experience within the same job family as this role isn't common and as a result likely not necessary.
- This shows there are many potential paths to becoming a Principal so focusing on translatable skills is likely more important than a specific role.
- This is a Senior role meaning if you don’t have significant work experience and likely also experience in a closely related field, you need to start more than one or two steps away from this role in planning your path. Consider board member or director as these are the most popular career starting points for Jobtrees users that led to principal. For a quicker path to this senior role title, consider looking at smaller companies as they have less layers to get to these more senior titles. The scope of the role and likely the pay though will still likely compare more similarly to a less experienced role title at a larger company. This is partly why you see some unexpected experience level titles leading to this role.
- While Board Member isn't from the same job family as Principal, Education - Admin, it can help to have direct experience in this discipline shown by Director also being a common career path to Principal.
- If you are looking for more potential career paths to Principal, you should also consider Senior Associate, General Manager and Co-founder as they commonly lead to Principal as well.
What should I know about the career path
- The most common degrees or certifications earned by Jobtrees users on the path to become Principal are Master Of Business Administration (mba), Bachelor Of Arts (b.a.) In Economics, and Bachelor Of Science (b.sc.) In Electrical Engineering. There may be other specific certification requirements to land a job with this role, so please make sure to check local regulations as well.
- Career paths aren't linear with people often returning to a prior role which is what you see with Board Member being on the path to and from Principal. This is common when people move companies where the title is the same as a past one but the scope may be different but also is commonly driven by them choosing to return to a function they fit well with.
- Principal is part of the Education - Admin job family which has a limited number of unique role types (34) within that discipline. Choosing to pursue a role within this family likely will mean that you will need to look outside of your discipline to find new roles and so should focus on related skills as part of that search.