Scrum Master and agile coach jobs rarely have “facilitator” in the title, but facilitation is part of the work. The Scrum Guide makes the Scrum Master responsible for ensuring that the team’s recurring events (planning, the Daily Scrum, reviews and retrospectives) take place and stay productive. This page explains what the role is according to its own source document, where agile coaching fits, and what the certifications require.
What is Scrum?
The Scrum Guide, written by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland (current edition November 2020), defines Scrum as “a lightweight framework that helps people, teams and organizations generate value”. A Scrum Team consists of one Scrum Master, one Product Owner and Developers, and is typically 10 or fewer people.
The work happens in Sprints: “fixed length events of one month or less”. Each Sprint contains four further events. The Daily Scrum is a 15-minute event; the guide gives the other three a maximum length for a one-month Sprint:
| Event | Timebox in the Scrum Guide |
|---|---|
| Sprint Planning | up to 8 hours (one-month Sprint) |
| Daily Scrum | 15 minutes |
| Sprint Review | up to 4 hours (one-month Sprint) |
| Sprint Retrospective | up to 3 hours (one-month Sprint) |
What does a Scrum Master do?
The Scrum Guide says the Scrum Master is “accountable for establishing Scrum as defined in the Scrum Guide” and “accountable for the Scrum Team’s effectiveness”. It lists three groups the Scrum Master serves.
The Scrum Team, by:
- coaching team members in self-management and cross-functionality
- helping the team focus on high-value Increments that meet the Definition of Done
- causing the removal of impediments to the team’s progress
- “ensuring that all Scrum events take place and are positive, productive, and kept within the timebox”
The Product Owner, by helping with Product Goal definition and backlog management, and by “facilitating stakeholder collaboration as requested or needed”.
The organization, by leading, training and coaching its Scrum adoption, advising on implementation, and “removing barriers between stakeholders and Scrum Teams”.
In the 2020 edition, the word “facilitating” appears only in the stakeholder bullet. For the events themselves, the guide says the Scrum Master ensures they happen and stay productive and within the timebox. The guide also notes that the Daily Scrum is an event “for the Developers”. A Scrum Master or Product Owner who is actively working on Sprint Backlog items takes part as a Developer.
Why this is facilitation work
The Scrum Guide does not say the Scrum Master must run every event personally. In practice, though, ensuring that an event is “positive, productive, and kept within the timebox” draws on facilitation skills: setting the purpose, keeping time, involving everyone and helping the group reach its own decisions. These overlap with the skills the International Association of Facilitators describes for group facilitation (see what does a facilitator do?).
What is an agile coach?
The Scrum Guide does not define an “agile coach” role, and we have not found a standard definition elsewhere. Postings with this title may focus on coaching one or several teams, or on an organization’s wider adoption of Scrum or other agile methods. Read each posting’s duties to see whether the role is mostly team facilitation, training, or organizational change. For the training side, see training facilitator jobs.
Scrum Master certifications
Scrum certifications are offered by several organizations. We describe two of them below, only from the certifiers’ own pages. The order is not a ranking.
Scrum Alliance: Certified ScrumMaster (CSM). According to Scrum Alliance:
- you complete a 16-hour course taught by a Certified Scrum Trainer, usually over 2 to 3 days
- you then have 90 days and two attempts to pass a one-hour test of 50 multiple-choice questions, answering at least 37 correctly
- you renew every two years with Scrum Education Units (SEUs) showing continued learning
The next levels on its Scrum Master track are the Advanced Certified ScrumMaster (A-CSM, which requires the CSM) and the Certified Scrum Professional ScrumMaster (CSP-SM, which requires the A-CSM).
Scrum.org: Professional Scrum Master (PSM). Scrum.org offers the PSM assessments. We could not open its certification page when this page was written (November 2026), so we have not repeated exam details from secondary sources, so please check scrum.org for the current format and fees.
How much do Scrum Masters earn?
BLS has no Scrum Master or agile coach occupation, so there is no official pay figure for these titles. The nearest BLS occupation is project management specialists: median annual wage $102,320, with the lowest 10 percent under $61,580 and the highest 10 percent over $167,970 (BLS, May 2025). BLS’s description of that occupation does not mention Scrum, agile or Scrum Masters. We do not know how many Scrum Masters BLS counts there, so use the figure only as a rough reference.
For the same occupation, BLS reports 1,094,300 jobs in 2025 and projects 7 percent growth from 2025 to 2035, which it calls much faster than average. BLS wage data does not include the self-employed, so it says nothing about contract or freelance agile coaching rates.
Hiring for this role?
If you are hiring a Scrum Master, agile coach or team facilitator in the U.S., get in touch about listing the role on facilitatorjobs.com.