The growth of the Coaching Industry

When I learned that International Coaching Week would have been running for twenty-five years, it made me reflect on all the changes I’ve seen in the coaching world.  

I first trained as a coach with The Coaching Academy in 2005. Back then, most people hadn’t heard of coaching and often thought it was about coaching sports teams or athletes. When I told my dad that I was going into coaching, he initially thought I would be driving a National Express coach around the country, I had to explain to him that, fortunately for motorists all around the UK, it was a very different type of coaching journey I was embarking on!

Great progress has been made in publicising and championing coaching since then. A couple of years after I trained, the International Coaching Federation (ICF) released its first Global Coaching Study in 2007, which it now completes every four years.   Their latest 2023 study has now been released and reports that the coaching profession has "continued to expand at a robust pace" and that globally "active coach practitioners generated an estimated annual revenue/income from coaching of $4.564 billion (USD)", compared to 2007 when the study estimated that the annual revenue generated by the coaching industry globally was close to $1.5 billion.

The study estimates that in 2022 the "number of coach practitioners exceeded 100,000 for the first time" since starting the study, reaching 109,200.  If we consider that there are two million qualified accountants in the world, it puts this into perspective. Of course, not everyone would benefit from the services of an accountant, but I believe that everyone would benefit from the services of a coach at some point in their lives!    

These figures make me proud to be part of such a viable, active community that is consistently growing, which is reflected in its revenue as well – it is clearly a flourishing profession and more qualified life coaches are needed!  Despite the abundance of individuals who claim to be coaches, it is rare to find professional coaches who possess the required expertise, competency, and skills.  Professionally skilled coaches are sought after now more than ever with research showing a rising trend of people prioritising seeking fulfilment and meaning in their life post-pandemic, you are needed!  

In fact, in all my time in the coaching community, I don’t think anything has had such a seismic impact on how coaches work as the Covid-19 pandemic. At the time, a lot of coaches were working remotely using Skype, but they would often still see many face-to-face clients as well. The huge increase of Zoom calls during lockdowns meant that online coaching sessions using this platform became normalised for many of our potential clients. Before this, many clients would sometimes shy away from online coaching or perhaps view it as an inferior medium, which it is clearly not the case. 

Zoom might not have changed many coaches’ perspectives towards online work as they could already see the benefits, but it certainly changed many of our clients’ perspectives. Once online coaching calls became normalised, the world was now our potential client with the flexibility to work across different time zones to suit family commitments and lifestyle choices.  Travel time was reduced or removed altogether, along with overheads such as hiring a place to coach from. Coaches were no longer tied to one location or restricted by travel times. They could now pick up their laptop and travel the world or fit in a couple of coaching sessions between school runs. Group coaching also gathered pace as it was much easier to organise online.

Online coaching calls have changed the dynamic of how we approach our businesses and how our potential clients do as well. It has changed from ‘What is coaching?’ to ‘Which coach are you working with?’ - I expect when the ICF’s next coaching study comes out we will see a considerable increase in revenue for our profession, reflecting the ease of access to our services.

However you choose to celebrate International Coaching Week this month, I hope you will do so by continuing to spread the potential benefits of coaching. Whether it is life coaching, business coaching, corporate coaching, wellbeing coaching…whether relationship, holistic, parenting, financial, confidence, education, career, or the multitude of other types of coaching, I truly believe there is a niche for every coach and a coach for every goal.