diff --git a/VERSION b/VERSION
index 834f2629538..c8e38b61405 100644
--- a/VERSION
+++ b/VERSION
@@ -1 +1 @@
-2.8.0
+2.9.0
diff --git a/docs/CHANGELOG.md b/docs/CHANGELOG.md
index 5941ae8a747..0f3d9a2f053 100644
--- a/docs/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/docs/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -9,6 +9,10 @@ and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0
 
 ## [dev]
 
+...
+
+## 2.9.0 - UNRELEASED
+
 ### Added
 
 - `chainlink health` CLI command and HTML `/health` endpoint, to provide human-readable views of the underlying JSON health data.