No public register names chief information officers. The nearest official number, 670,570 computer and information systems manager jobs (BLS, OEWS, May 2025), counts IT management posts, several per employer, and 131,930 of them sit in IT service firms that sell to CIOs. A CIO list has to start from organizations, not from jobs.
Sizing the CIO target from public counts
| What is counted | Number | Unit | Source and date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Computer and information systems managers | 670,570 | wage and salary jobs | BLS, OEWS profile 11-3021, May 2025 estimates |
| of which in computer systems design and related services | 131,930 | jobs | same profile |
| of which in head offices (management of companies and enterprises) | 73,160 | jobs | same profile |
| US firms with 1,000 or more employees | 10,641 | firms | Census Bureau, Statistics of U.S. Businesses 2022, released 10 April 2025 |
| Community hospitals | 5,121 | hospitals | AHA Fast Facts on U.S. Hospitals 2026, from the 2024 AHA Annual Survey |
| Community hospitals that belong to a health system | 3,567 | hospitals | same source |
| Degree-granting colleges and universities | 3,896 | institutions | NCES, Digest table 317.10, academic year 2022-23 |
| Chief information officers | not published | people | nobody publishes this figure |
The job figure and the organization figures pull in opposite directions. The BLS number holds every IT director, IT manager and development director under the CIO, plus the IT managers of vendors. The sample titles the Labor Department's O*NET database gives for this occupation are IT director, IT manager, MIS director and their neighbors; chief information officer is listed elsewhere, among the titles reported by chief executives.
The organization counts allow at most one CIO each, and in practice fewer, since a hospital that belongs to a system may share its IT head with the other hospitals of that system. The dates differ too: jobs for May 2025, firms for 2022, hospitals for 2024, campuses for 2022-23. Our own figure comes later, from your exact target, during the call.
What a CIO is, for this list
- In: chief information officer; VP of IT or IT director when it is the top IT job; head of information services in a hospital; the CIO of a federal agency, a role GAO describes as defined by federal law, particularly the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996 (GAO-11-634).
- Not the CTO: the CIO looks inward, at the systems the organization runs on. The CTO looks outward, at the technology inside what the company sells. A bank can have both; a mid-size manufacturer may have an IT director and no CTO at all.
- Edge, the security chief: a chief information security officer may report to the CIO. Include that role only if you ask for it.
- Edge, the acronym: at an asset manager or an insurer, the same three letters can name the chief investment officer.
- Edge, size: in a firm of 150, the top IT person may be a manager with two staff. Give a minimum size if that matters to you.
- Out: IT managers below the top job, and the account managers of IT providers.
Hospitals and campuses deserve a sentence of their own. Neither the AHA summary nor the NCES tables name anyone: they list institutions. On a campus the top IT job can carry the CIO title, a vice president title, or a director title, and the same is true in health systems. That is why a CIO target is written as a list of institutions plus the titles you accept, rather than as a single title.
For the other C-level targets, see the role index and the titles it lists.
Where CIO names come from
| Source | What it gives | What it does not give |
|---|---|---|
| BLS, OEWS 11-3021 | IT management jobs by industry, state and metro area | employers, names |
| Census, Statistics of U.S. Businesses | firms by number of employees, industry and state | names |
| AHA Annual Survey, public summary | hospitals and their membership in health systems | the people who run IT |
| NCES | every degree-granting institution and its address | who runs IT on campus |
| GAO reports and agency websites | federal agency CIOs, whose role is defined in law | state and local IT heads |
| Company websites | named CIOs at large companies | mid-size firms, which seldom publish their head of IT |
| Professional profiles | title and employer | a phone number that reaches the person |
Five steps, then the detail
- List the organizations in your target: companies by size, hospitals, campuses, agencies.
- Decide where the CIO seat sits for each one: the company, the system, or the campus.
- Find who holds it today, by the titles you accept.
- Find a phone line that reaches that person, and a work email when one exists.
- Drop anything that fails a check before delivery.
How each step is done: the full method.
The work, in actions
Take three groups together: the 10,641 firms with 1,000 or more employees, the 5,121 community hospitals and the 3,896 degree-granting institutions. That is 19,658 organizations before a single name.
- 19,658 checks that each organization still exists and fits the target.
- 9,017 matching checks, one per hospital and per campus, against the firm list, because a private hospital system or a private college can also be one of the 10,641 firms.
- 3,567 lookups, one per hospital in a system, to find the level where IT leadership sits.
- One search per remaining organization for the top IT title, then one check per name that the person is still there.
- One phone search and one email search per confirmed person.
Where a CIO list misleads
The sellers get counted with the buyers
In the BLS figures, 131,930 computer and information systems managers work in computer systems design, 35,120 at software publishers and 26,210 at computing infrastructure and hosting providers. They run IT, but their employer sells it. A list built from job titles alone mixes the CIOs you want with the vendors who already call them.
One CIO behind many front doors
3,567 community hospitals belong to a system. Call each hospital and the same person can come back several times, or a local IT manager who does not decide. The same can happen in university systems and in holding companies. Decide whether you want one line per system or one per site.
Three letters, two jobs
In finance and insurance, CIO can mean information or investment, and a large firm may employ both. An acronym search returns both kinds of people. Write the full title in your target.
What you get from Premium Data
- Two kinds of line. Person: name, title, organization, a phone number that reaches them, work email when one exists. Company: company name, address, main phone, website.
- The build happens on the day you order, on the target in your own words.
- Each line passes three checks: the organization exists, the person exists, and the person has not left.
- A line without a phone number costs you nothing, and the bill cannot pass the ceiling you set.
- Should a line be wrong, you get its price back: show a hard bounce, a public profile or a recording of the call, within thirty days of delivery.
- The count costs nothing: a 30 minute call, during which you call one line with us before you pay.
The rules for calling and emailing in the United States apply to this list as to any other.
In short: CIO figures that stand alone
- BLS put employment of computer and information systems managers across the United States at 670,570 jobs in May 2025, 131,930 of them in computer systems design and related services (OEWS 11-3021, read 3 October 2026).
- The 2024 AHA Annual Survey counted 5,121 US community hospitals, 3,567 of which belonged to a health system (AHA Fast Facts on U.S. Hospitals 2026, updated February 2026).
- NCES counted 3,896 degree-granting postsecondary institutions in the United States in academic year 2022-23 (Digest of Education Statistics, table 317.10, read 3 October 2026).