Key Takeaways
- A "Head of" title usually lands at the Director level, though pay and scope can skew closer to VP depending on the function.
- Director and VP are not interchangeable: a VP typically oversees multiple directors and owns department-wide strategy, while a Director owns one function.
- Pave data across nearly 15,000 "Head of" employees shows most are leveled as Director or Senior Director (M5-M6), especially at companies with fewer than 500 employees.
- "Head of" titles carry roughly a nine percent pay premium over "Director" titles in Pave's dataset, once you control for job family, level, and market.
- Directors and Senior Directors average 4.6 direct reports today, up from 4.3 in Q4 2023, and that span widens further at the VP level and above.
Note: This article was originally published September 1, 2021 and updated to include current benchmarks as of November 2025. Updated August 2026.
A "Head of" title usually maps to the Director level, while VP sits a full level above both, with wider scope and more direct reports.
Job leveling is an important step when building a compensation philosophy. The process of job leveling isn’t easy, but it’s important to get it right. Titling employees is one of those tricky areas.
There’s an open debate on the best practices for job titling, notably with Marc Andreesen and Mark Zuckerberg arguing for opposite camps. One side believes that titles are the cheapest form of compensation and should be given out freely to give a competitive advantage. The other side is more strict about granting high-level titles in order to implement proper leveling and ensure titles are meaningful and fair.
Wherever your organization falls on that spectrum, the "Head of" title tends to confuse people the most, and it's rarely clear where Director and VP fit around it either. So let's look at what the data actually shows about how these three titles stack up in scope, structure, and pay.
When should you use the “Head of” job title?
Consider roles like Head of Marketing, Head of Analytics, Head of Sales, and so on. These “Head of” job titles are fairly common, but the standard leveling frameworks fall short here.
Where does your company land on using the “Head of” job title? It’s likely your organization falls into one of three buckets:
- Never uses “Head Of” out of principle
- Over-uses “Head Of” and has several employees with the title
- Seldom uses “Head Of” for the unique cases where an employee has a disproportionate amount of company influence requisite with traditional org chart metrics, like span of control or org size
When we think of “Head of” positions, are these roles aligned with a Senior Manager, a Director, or a VP? The answer can mean tens of thousands of dollars in difference for an employee’s compensation, and set a very different bar for the level of work expected.
What level is a “Head of” job title?
We looked at Pave's real-time dataset to analyze data points across almost 15K employees with a “Head of” title. The findings show that a “Head of” can be any level from Senior IC or Manager to Director/Senior Director or Executive, and the breakdown varies somewhat by company size.
That said, a majority of the time, a “Head of” employee is leveled as a Director/Senior Director (M5-M6) by their organization. This is especially pronounced at organizations with fewer than 500 employees.
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According to the Pave Job Catalog, a “M5: Director manages at least two or more teams or sub-teams via other managers”. But, do Directors in Pave’s dataset actually manage other managers?
We looked at 55K directors at the M5 and M6 levels to see how many of them have direct reports who also have direct reports (aka managers).
Two findings arose:
- The more mature the company, the more likely that Directors actually manage other managers and “grow into the title”.
- This being said, roughly half of Directors at tech companies with fewer than 500 (or even 1,000) employees do not actually manage other managers.
Director vs. VP: What's the Difference?
Once you know where "Head of" tends to land, the next common question is how Director and VP differ. Senior Manager vs. Director vs. VP confusion often shows up in org design conversations. The short version: scope, not just seniority, is what separates them.
A Director typically owns one function or department. The work is tactical and execution-focused: hitting goals within a defined budget and team, and managing the managers or ICs who report in. A VP sits a level above that. Instead of running one function, a VP oversees multiple Directors across a broader area, sets strategy for that whole department, and represents it in cross-functional and executive conversations.
Span of control backs this up. Pave's real-time data shows Directors and Senior Directors average 4.6 direct reports today, up from 4.3 in Q4 2023, while that number climbs further up the chain: managers at companies with 1,000 or more employees average 5.89 reports per manager overall.
Outside of tech, this Director-to-VP boundary is also where most organizations draw the line between middle management and the executive layer, even though Vice President generally isn't considered a C-level title on its own. VPs usually report to a C-suite executive rather than sitting on it, even as they carry real strategic weight.
Why Use “Head of” vs “Director”?
If most "Head of" employees are leveled as Director, why not just use that title? A few reasons tend to explain the choice:
- The rest of your organization has flat titles. You’re not yet ready to introduce a formal leveling system, yet, and "Head of" is a lighter-weight option.
- Candidates negotiate for it. Some candidates simply prefer to be “Head of” over "Director" during offer conversations.
- The role is still growing in scope. You expect the employee to grow into director-level responsibility and manage multiple teams, but that isn’t the scope of the role today.
It could also be a recruiting tool to attract candidates when competing against Director roles elsewhere. Pave data finds that when normalizing by family, level, and market tier (US only), there is a ~9% premium for employees with "Head of" in their title over employees with "Director" in their title.
How much does a “Head of” get paid?
The next logical question is around “Head of” vs Director when it comes to salary. So, do “Heads Of X” get paid a salary premium to “Directors of X”? Or does “Head Of” compensation generally map one-to-one with Director compensation?
We looked at ~10,000 employees with the titles “Head Of”, “Director”, and “VP” in USA Tier 1 markets. We decided to only look at one locale to take location (mostly) out of the equation as a potential confounding variable. Next, we looked at the median base salaries for all employees with the title “Director” vs. “Head Of” vs. “VP/Vice President”.
Lastly, we broke down the results by job family. E.g. Does a “Head of Sales” err more towards “VP of Sales” whereas “Head of Design” errs more towards “Director of Design”? (Hint–the answer is yes to both.) This analysis is based on plain-text title matching rather than on actual mapped levels.
As we can see, in general, "Head of" titles tend to be paid more than directors but less than VPs. Interestingly, a “Head of X” in the R&D world (Design, Engineering, Product) tends to get paid closer to “Director”. In other departments however, a “Head Of X” tends to get paid somewhere in between “Director” and “VP”.
While this data helps us to demystify some of the questions around “Head of” vs Director, being thoughtful about titles and levels is key for compensation leaders. When you’re undertaking a benchmarking exercise at your organization, Pave Market Data is a great place to begin.
Get Your Titles and Pay Working Together
Titles like "Head of," Director, and VP will keep colliding as companies scale, and no single naming convention is right for every org. What matters is knowing where each title actually lands in scope, span of control, and pay, so your leveling decisions hold up under scrutiny.
Ready to see how your titles stack up against the market? Sign up for Pave's Market Data Lite for free to benchmark your org against real-time data from 8,700+ companies, or explore Market Data Pro if you need coverage across every market and function.
Pave is a world-class team committed to unlocking a labor market built on trust. Our mission is to build confidence in every compensation decision.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):
Which is higher, a Director or a Head of, and how does that compare to VP?
Director and "Head of" are usually treated as equivalent, sitting at the same level in most organizations, though "Head of" often carries a modest pay premium depending on the function. VP ranks a full level above both, overseeing multiple directors and taking on broader strategic scope across a department rather than owning a single function.
What is the difference between a Director and a Vice President?
A Director typically owns one function or department and focuses on tactical execution within that area, managing the team or teams below them. A Vice President oversees multiple directors and functions at once, setting strategy across a broader part of the business rather than running day-to-day work in a single department.
What is the hierarchy above VP?
Above VP, most organizations move to Senior Vice President (SVP), then into C-level roles such as Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Revenue Officer, or Chief People Officer, with the CEO and, at some companies, a President sitting at the top of the structure.
What are the 7 levels of the job title hierarchy?
A common seven-level hierarchy runs Manager, Senior Manager, Director, Senior Director, VP, SVP, and C-level. Not every organization uses all seven levels or names them identically, and smaller companies often collapse several of these into one or two titles.
Is VP considered a C-level title?
Not typically. VPs usually report to a C-suite executive or directly to the CEO, and they generally lead a function rather than sitting on the executive leadership team. Titles like Executive Vice President can blur this line at some organizations, but VP on its own sits a step below the C-suite.
