The relevance of this article is conditioned by the acute problem in the training of qualified personnel for education. Every period of development of human civilization has its own requirements for the teacher as a person and for his professional activity. The process of globalization and current trends in the labor market pose new challenges in the training of highly qualified specialists in higher education. Based on this, the state, acting as the main customer of education, sets clearly formulated and qualification requirements for teacher training. A modern pedagogue is a specialist who has the ability to communicate with all participants of educational relations at a high professional level, in other words, a high level of communicative competence. The purpose of the article is to reveal the content and essence of communicative competence as an crucial quality of professional activity of a teacher. The article presents a structural model for the development of a teacher’s communicative competence, which ensures the practical significance of this material.