Fewer than a third of CIOs surveyed had a degree in information technology or computer science, 20 per cent had a business, commerce or finance degree, and a quarter went on to get a masters in business administration.
Just 5 per cent held an arts or humanities degree.
"It seems that the specificities of one's initial education and training are not as important as the training undertaken throughout one's career and the experiences they gain," the report says.
Just over half of the CIOs hold IT certifications or have undertaken additional IT qualifications.
Gaining a broad base of experience seems to be more important for career development than excelling in a single field.
Jason Millett, the interim CIO of Westpac New Zealand, rotates new graduates on his team out to the wider business.
"Whether it's to a branch or a call centre, they need to go into the business to understand the context of what the business does in order to be able to come up with the best technology solutions to deliver business outcomes," he says.
Millett, whose first experience with large IT projects came during his 15 years with the Australian Navy, says it wasn't until he worked for a CIO who thought of technology in terms of business outcomes that he aspired to the role.
"I don't believe in technology strategy. There's only one strategy and that's the business strategy. Your alignment with the business's strategy and with what the business demands and needs is most important," Millett says.
Kevin Angland from insurance firm IAG New Zealand, last year's New Zealand CIO of the Year, says patience is a virtue in career development.
"I see a lot of people who would like to be CIO in a short timeframe. To be successful you need to give yourself time to gain the necessary breadth and depth of experience," he says.
Overseas experience can also be handy. Some 58 per cent of surveyed CIOs have worked outside New Zealand or Australia at some point in their careers, and the majority of those said it benefited their careers.
Asked to rate their soft skills, 54 per cent of CIOs said they were adaptive, 49 per cent considered they were hard-working, and 48 per cent said they were collaborative.
The top skills they considered necessary were people management, stakeholder engagement and commercial acumen. Only 16 per cent rated technical knowledge in their top three attributes of a good CIO.
"A key aspect is there is a much broader need for understanding the needs of the business you are in and what the customer wants," Angland says. "You can hire technical experts at the appropriate level. Your job is to understand the business and build relationships.
"I would argue that with the move to the cloud, and the move to build applications rather than monolithic systems, the ecosystem exists so the role is to be more of a broker for technology."
He says the shift has come because customers expect to do more of their business online, and that has meant a lot of project work and redesign of internal systems.
For IAG, the challenge has been to change the business to cope with the workload created by the Canterbury earthquakes, which required increased investment in technology.
"We had to move from simple transaction management of claims to case management, so there was a business process change [needed]."
There have also been mergers and acquisitions, which bring new systems and new people to replace or integrate.
Automobile Association CIO Doug Wilson, who did not participate in the survey, agrees that with technology evolution there is more willingness in IT departments to participate in the business side.
"We were a roadblock, always saying no. Security was a great scapegoat - just mention security and the CEO would back down."
But being a CIO without technical knowledge is a tough ask, and in his experience those who don't have some IT in their background haven't been great.
"Half the time you're working out priorities, and if you don't have a feel for how technology works, how projects should be run, it is a tough ask," Wilson says.
"Another reason for CIOs to be part of the industry is you get a lot done through relationships. For all my suppliers, I have to have a personal relationship with the chief executive of the firm. That means if I need something, I can make the call. People from outside don't understand how to do that."
