Charity CEO Salary 2026/27: Take-Home Across Charity Size
There is no published median for charity chief executive pay. ONS suppresses ASHE entirely for charitable organisation managers and directors (SOC 2020 1135) - no median, no mean, no percentiles - so the figures here are for the wider minor group it belongs to, functional managers and directors, whose full-time median was £75,264 in ASHE 2025. That group also contains corporate finance, HR and marketing directors, so read it as context rather than as a charity figure. For an actual number, charity accounts are the place to look.
Typical pay & take-home
- ASHE 2025 median, all functional managers and directors (group 113)
- £75,264
- ASHE 2025 group 113, 10th to 75th percentile
- £37,223–£110,752
- Take-home on that salary
- £54,211 England, no pension applied — use the salary calculator for your scheme.
At £75,264, you earn about 93% above the UK full-time median (£39,039), placing you between the 75th percentile (£54,009) and the 90th percentile (£76,903) of UK full-time earnings.
What influences charity chief executive pay
The charity-specific occupation is not measured. ONS publishes nothing at all for SOC 1135, in either the full-time or all-employee sheet, and there is no charity-sector equivalent of the NHS or Civil Service earnings publications. Any site quoting a precise charity CEO median is not taking it from an official source.
What is public is better than an average anyway: charities preparing accruals accounts under the Charities SORP disclose the number of employees whose employee benefits exceeded £60,000, in bands of £10,000. That gives the actual pay band for a named organisation rather than a sector estimate.
Pension arrangements vary from charity to charity and are not measured for the sector, so check the scheme itself. A defined-contribution scheme run as relief at source or salary sacrifice converts gross to take-home differently from the net pay arrangements of the NHS and Civil Service schemes.
Career progression
- Bottom decile of the wider functional managers and directors group: £37,223.
- Lower quartile: £51,719.
- Median: £75,264.
- Upper quartile: £110,752.
- These describe the minor group, not charity roles specifically - the charity unit group within it is suppressed.
Frequently asked questions
- Where can I find what a specific charity pays its chief executive?
- In its annual accounts. In England and Wales a charity with income over £25,000 must send its accounts to the Charity Commission with its annual return, and those accounts are on the register of charities. Scotland (OSCR) and Northern Ireland (the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland) keep their own registers. Charities preparing accruals accounts under the Charities SORP disclose how many employees received employee benefits above £60,000, in bands of £10,000, which gives a real band for a named organisation.
- Why is there no official charity CEO salary figure?
- ONS suppresses estimates where the sample is too small to be statistically robust, and SOC 1135 - charitable organisation managers and directors - is suppressed completely in ASHE 2025. The figures on this page therefore come from the wider group it sits inside, which includes corporate directors and will not be representative of charity pay.
Related professions
Sources
- ONS - ASHE 2025 Table 14.7a, annual pay by SOC 2020 occupation
- GOV.UK - Find information on registered charities (Charity Commission register)
- GOV.UK - Prepare a charity annual return
- ONS — Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings 2025 (UK full-time median and percentiles)
- HMRC — Rates and thresholds 2026/27
- Our full methodology & calculation sources →