2012 ICF Global Coaching Study - Executive Summary

This is a summary of the findings from the 2012 ICF Global Coaching Study. The study was commissioned in 2011 by the International Coach Federation (ICF) and undertaken by PricewaterhouseCoopers. In late 2006, the ICF commissioned its first ever global industry study to provide a baseline picture of the profession; to identify what coaches saw as the major challenges; and to estimate the size of the profession. When the benchmark Final Report was ultimately released, the 2007 ICF Global Coaching Study included responses from 5,415 coaches living in 73 different countries – among them, more than 1,500 non-ICF member coaches. Since then, the landscape of professional coaching has evolved in terms of the number of coaches worldwide, global revenue, and perhaps even the demographic profile of the coach. Following a sharp slowdown in 2008, global output fell in 2009 and subsequent economic recovery has been tentative. Nonetheless, the coaching profession appears to have continued its expansion. To serve as a reference, the ICF membership numbers grew from around 11,000 in 2006 to almost 19,000 by the end of 2011. Against that backdrop, the 2012 ICF Global Coaching Study was designed to be one of the most ambitious pieces of industry research ever conducted on the field of professional coaching. A primary goal was to engage with as many coaches as possible on a worldwide basis, thus providing an up-todate picture of the profession to help meet the challenges ahead.