2026 Salary Survey: Charity CEO salaries and executive trends

How much can charity CEOs expect to earn in 2026?

The short answer is that it very much depends on the nature of the role, including factors such as the size and scale of the organisation, its annual income, and whether it needs radical transformation or simply a careful steward to keep things on track.

If anyone knows, though, it's the hugely experienced specialists of our Executive Search team, who are behind the appointment of at least 50 charity CEOs each year, along with many trustees, chairs and other charity board members.

Here's what they had to say about the current market for charity executives in our 2026 Salary Survey.

CEO & board level appointments

We’ll start with a spoiler alert. If you’re looking to liven up your day with a nice bit of outrage about excessive executive pay, you’ll be disappointed here. Do try the FTSE100 though, you’ll be furious in no time.

While the very biggest, best-known organisations may need to pay sizeable six-figure sums to be in contention for the few leaders with experience of running operations on that scale, these account for perhaps 100-200 of the UK’s approximately 170,000 registered charities.

Among the other 169,800 – or at least, those large enough to have one – CEOs are generally receiving salaries somewhere between £60-120k, with at least 80% in the lower half of that range. You may even see rates as low as £45-50k on occasion, but only where the role is more akin to a senior manager than a fully-fledged CEO.

What’s more, charity executive earnings generally begin and end with the salary: no bumper bonuses here. Nor – although the idea is occasionally floated – are you likely to encounter performance-related pay, partly because it can be difficult to determine what constitutes success when you can’t just point at profit. 

Nonetheless, in line with the prevailing trend across the sector at all levels, application numbers have risen dramatically over the past two years, with lists of 200+ not uncommon for certain roles.

Where do executives want to work?

Top of the popularity list are fully remote roles, which are fairly rare at this level, with those requiring five days a week on site at the other extreme. Between them, and location aside, levels of interest are primarily influenced by a combination of salary and the nature of the cause.

Charities assisting the likes of cats, dogs, children and other popular creatures can generally expect a strong response, whereas the inbox will ping a little less frequently for areas like architecture, literacy or transport.

However, in a rock-paper-scissors style face-off for candidate interest, high salary + old buildings beats low salary + injured kittens every time.

Narrowing so many applicants down to a manageable shortlist in a fair and rational way is where things start to get tricky.

At more junior levels, a fair proportion of applications can be relied on to discount themselves, for bearing no relevance to the advertised post, meeting none of the given criteria, having manifestly applied for an entirely different position, and other facepalm classics.

As you’d hope, however, CEO applications are more likely to clear these basic hurdles, and thanks to widespread and liberal use of AI, most are similarly polished too. But without sufficient scrutiny of its output, candidates can find themselves undermined by AI’s politician-like ability to generate superficially impressive-sounding spiel while saying nothing of actual substance.

With little variance in style and presentation, content is everything, and standout applications aren’t necessarily the most well-written, but those with the strongest examples that clearly demonstrate relevant experience and quantifiable results. 

We’ll have another one of those, please

Perhaps inevitably, given their composition and slightly arm’s-length relationship to the organisation, charity boards can be somewhat risk-averse, with an image in mind of the ideal candidate that’s essentially the previous incumbent cloned. 

However, there’s often a good case to be made for bringing something new to the table, so at this level, applicants with strong CVs who are passionate about the cause and meet at least 70% of the stated criteria shouldn’t necessarily rule themselves out.

Those who make it to interview stage can generally expect the first round to be conducted online, with the second in person, where the organisations most likely to secure their first-choice candidate are those who’ve given some thought to making the interview a positive experience, recognising that their guests aren’t the only ones who need to make a good impression.

If you'd like to know more about salaries or the market, or for help and advice with any current or future requirements at this level, please contact our Executive Search team via the details below, call 020 7820 7300, or email executive@harrishill.co.uk

Nick Shanks

Director

07766 538575

Email Nick

Jenny Hills

Director

020 7820 7321

Email Jenny

Aled Morris

CEO

020 7820 7301

Email Aled