How To Become A Youth Leader: What It Is and Career Path

What is a youth leader and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Youth leaders commonly function within religious youth communities. They regularly organize social, educational, and spiritual development programs targeted towards a younger population. Your job is to organize a range of activities from sports, quizzes, debates, technological and art programs to hangouts and fundraisers. You will be required to work with older people in the community as well as volunteers to see to the success of your programs.

As a youth leader, maintaining a positive relationship with people around you is of utmost importance. You might also be in charge of a youth facility where you will be responsible for the administrative, operational, financial, and logistical care of the facility. Every youth leader must have exemplary leadership and managerial skills as well as excellent communication and interpersonal skills. The most commonly required educational qualification for a youth leader is a bachelor's degree. Some useful certifications to have are First Aid and CPR. The average youth leader earns $12.47 per hour and $25,000 annually.

ScoreYouth LeaderUS Average

Salary

2.3

Avg. Salary $29,481

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability Level

9.7

Growth Rate 12%

Growth Rate 0.3%

Diversity

5.3

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.89%

Asian 5.18%

Black or African American 10.63%

Hispanic or Latino 14.54%

Unknown 5.40%

White 63.38%

Gender

female 54.72%

male 45.28%

Age - 45

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 45

Stress Level

9.7

Stress level is very high

7.1 - high

Complexity Level

8.8

Complexity Level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work Life Balance

5.0

Work Life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a youth leader

Explore youth leader education requirements

Most common youth leader degrees

Bachelor's

59.5 %

Associate

17.5 %

High School Diploma

12.8 %

Start to develop specific youth leader skills

Skills	Percentages
CPR	22.21%
Fine Arts	10.40%
Academic Enrichment	10.39%
Homework Assistance	9.81%
Youth Development	6.92%

Complete relevant youth leader training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 6-12 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New youth leaders learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a youth leader based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real youth leader resumes.

Research youth leader duties and responsibilities

Lead a range of activities from science, mathematics, art, physical education, technology and language arts.
Assist in achieving and maintaining DoD certification and national accreditation or equivalent compliance.
Focuse on community outreach and discovering their passion as well as teaching effective communication skills and leadership development.
Develop and teach lessons plans, multimedia and meeting notes using PowerPoint.

Get youth leader experience

Generally, it takes 4-6 years to become a youth leader. The most common roles before becoming a youth leader include volunteer, internship team lead and cashier.

Prepare your youth leader resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your youth leader resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a youth leader resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose From 10+ Customizable Youth Leader Resume templates

Build a professional Youth Leader resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your Youth Leader resume.

Apply for youth leader jobs

Now it's time to start searching for a youth leader job. Consider the tips below for a successful job search:

Browse job boards for relevant postings
Consult your professional network
Reach out to companies you're interested in working for directly
Watch out for job scams

How do youth leaders rate their job?

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Youth Leader reviews

A zippia user wrote a review on Oct 2019

Pros

working and interfacing with our Youth group.