The median annual salary for chief executives at the UK’s largest 100 charities has risen to £192,000, according to new research.
Today, Charity Finance, Civil Society’s sister publication, published its latest Charity Chief Executive Survey 2025.
The previous survey found that the top charity CEOs received a median salary of £175,000, up from £170,000 in 2021 and £155,000 in 2019.
This year’s survey also shows that the top jobs at the largest charities continue to be dominated by men, unlike in the sector more broadly.
Highest and lowest-paid leaders
Charity Finance’s biennial survey profiles leaders at the largest 100 UK charities and gathers their views on the current economic and political environment.
Where CEOs did not wish to participate, publicly available data including on LinkedIn and Companies House were used to complete the table.
Looking at the salaries of the 71 CEOs for which data was available, the survey shows that they earned £192,000 per annum on average.
John-Arne Røttingen, who joined Wellcome as CEO in January 2024, is among the highest-paid charity CEOs in the survey, with an annual income of £580,000.
Philip Colligan, CEO of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, earned between £520,000 and £530,000 in 2023 while Paul Nurse, CEO of the Francis Crick Institute, earned between £460,000 and £470,000 last year.
The lowest-paid leaders were Dave Kendall, chief officer of the Church of Scotland (£95,000); Saleh Saeed, chief executive of the Disasters Emergency Committee (£99,666); and Khusbu Patel, acting executive director of the International Rescue Committee, UK (£107,000).
Meanwhile, Paul Main, territorial commander of the Salvation Army in the UK and Ireland, receives an annual remuneration of £22,668 to cover his cost of living.
A recent analysis by the High Pay Centre shows that the median pay of the FTSE 100 CEOs, excluding pension, currently stands at £4.22m.
Gender split and total income
Seven charities in the sample do not currently have a chief executive.
At 62%, men make up most of the top 93 CEOs, according to the survey.
Overall, 30% of the 92 CEOs for which information was available have been in post for a year or less compared with 48% who have been in the role for five years or more.
Nearly seven in 10 CEOs previously held a position in the voluntary sector before taking up their current role. This compares with 17% who were previously in the private sector and 16% in the public sector.
The organisations included in the survey are the largest UK charities according to the Charity Finance 100 Index, which ranks members based on their average income over the last three years.
Between them, all charities in the survey have a combined total three-year average income of £17.9bn.
The top three charities – Nuffield Health, the Charities Aid Foundation and Cancer Research UK – have a combined three-year average income of £2.58bn.
Related articles
