2024 Salary Survey: CEO salaries and executive trends

What are charity chief executives really getting paid in 2024?

If anyone knows, it’s the experts of our Chief Executive and Director Recruitment Practice, each of whom has been successfully placing charity leaders and senior executives for more than a decade.

Working with third sector organisations of all sizes nationwide, they've appointed more than 50 CEOs for charities in the last two years alone, and here's what they had to say about executive pay in the 2024 Harris Hill Salary Survey, which you can find in full via the link below.

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​CEO salaries and executive market trends

CEO salaries vary enormously depending on factors such as the size of the organisation, scale of the job, whether you’re managing or actively fundraising too, and whether you’re keeping a well-oiled machine running smoothly or spearheading dramatic transformation, so the numbers alone mean little without the individual context.

However, aside from the very biggest charities, where CEO pay among those with incomes above £50m averaged £175,000 in 2023, the vast majority of charity CEO earnings fall somewhere in the range we’ve handled over the last 12 months: broadly speaking, £60,000 to £120,000.

Upward pressure on pay continues to be most in evidence at the lower end of the scale: salaries beginning with a ‘5’ are all but entirely a thing of the past, while even £60,000 is only viable for those prepared to be flexible on what’s required of potential candidates.

Somewhat reassuringly in this mixed-up world, salaries appear to have an entirely predictable relationship with application numbers. Offer more than £90k and take your pick from a veritable smörgåsbord of leadership talent; offer less and prepare to be more of a sandwich board, trying to attract the attention of passing professionals – which is not to say that you won't succeed eventually, but you should probably be prepared for a considerable wait.

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Fortune favours the brave

For their part, candidates remain consistent about what they’re looking for, but what could really change the game is a more open mind on the part of organisations, in terms of who they’re willing to consider.

The biggest obstacle is a general aversion to applicants from outside the sector. Charities are missing out on many exceptional commercial candidates who are willing to take the salary cut to get into the sector, or for their first CEO role, and who have bags of the business acumen that boards say they’re looking for. Yet they're routinely rejected for reasons such as a lack of fundraising experience.

​It’s understandable: hiring decisions at this level are a big responsibility, one that normally rests with trustees who as a group, almost by definition, tend to be risk-averse. Few will blame them if they go for the safe option and it doesn’t work out, but plenty will point the finger if they take a chance on something different and it’s anything short of a triumph.

Inevitably, that tends to favour the known, charity sector quantity over an ambitious outsider, whatever their individual merits.

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Rules: made to be broken

CEOs have always enjoyed a fair degree of flexibility by virtue of their position - who’s going to stop them working from home if they choose to? - but it remains an important part of the package, and one that can be more flexible in itself than it first appears.

Charities will usually explain how flexible they’re prepared to be at the outset, as a matter of general policy. However, we very often see that once it comes down to discussing a specific individual and their requirements, there’s a great deal more willingness to accommodate them, particularly if refusal runs the risk of losing an otherwise excellent candidate.

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Alternatively, visit our Chief Executive & Director Recruitment Practice homepage for more information.

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For more on charity sector salaries, including current rates for around 200 third sector positions and market insights for each of our specialist areas, view or download the 2024 Harris Hill Salary Survey ►

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