2026 Salary Survey: fundraising market trends

There’s rarely been a more acute and widespread need to raise more revenue across the sector, which should mean strong demand for fundraisers and salary increases to match.

Yet that’s not quite the picture we’ve been seeing over the last 12 months: here’s what our specialists had to say about the fundraising market in our 2026 Salary Survey (available here).

Fundraising market trends

With an increasing number of funding sources drying up and donations in decline, charities may never have needed talented fundraisers more.

But those very same reasons explain why that need isn’t currently translating into high vacancy numbers or sizeable salary increases. A bidding war for the best talent can only last as long as interested parties can afford to participate, and this year’s limited increases suggest a ceiling may have been reached.

That’s concerning for candidates who are only too well aware that there’s no such ceiling on their ever-increasing living costs, where any domestic effort to bring them down seems to be swiftly negated by global developments that hand them a whole bunch of helium balloons.

If fundraisers can’t earn the numbers they need at their level, the solution for many is to try and move up, which is why we’re seeing candidates pushing for more senior positions more quickly than they might have advanced in the past.

However, that ambition is increasingly thwarted by a lack of movement at senior levels, as those in such positions see little opportunity to go further themselves.

Taking it slow

With the candidate shortages of recent years now firmly consigned to history, it’s perhaps no surprise to see many employers lapsing back into more languorous recruitment methods, deliberating over decisions at a more leisurely pace, and calling candidates back for multiple rounds of interviews before finally committing to a choice.

The trouble is that even in this market, the strongest candidates will still have other options, and are very likely to be lost long before the process creaks to a conclusion. Realistically, you’ve got to really want the job to put yourself through four rounds of interviews, and by the end of this Herculean ordeal you might well be having second thoughts. If not third or fourth. 

In fact, the only contingent sure to see the process right through to the end are those with no other options, possibly the least likely contenders to tick every box on your 16th draft of the requirements. 

Here’s one I hired earlier

Nonetheless, there’s no denying that the last two years have seen a dramatic increase in the number of available candidates for fundraising roles, which is likely why we’ve also seen a greater number of organisations relying on their own resources to recruit, at least at junior levels, rather than engaging, say, a leading specialist charity recruiter.

We’ll pause here while you break out the tiny violin.

It’s understandable, of course. In such straitened financial times, charities can hardly be blamed for seizing upon anything that looks like a potential saving. However, as we regularly hear from our clients, dealing with the deluge of applications that junior positions now routinely attract can be considerably more laborious and time-consuming than anticipated, wiping out any expected benefit.

With our most impartial hat on, we can only say that it’s worth looking carefully and realistically at the true costs – not only of the time and resources you’ll need to put in, but of the work that will be sidelined while you’re explaining to the 45th caller of the day why their six-week stint at Greggs doesn’t automatically make them a shoo-in for Legacy Fundraising Manager. 

Elsewhere, last year’s trends roll over: senior roles continue to merge, and hybrid working remains the norm, albeit with a slight shift towards more office time for all but Trust & Statutory fundraisers. That's largely due to the volume of writing involved in their role, to which open-plan offices are rarely conducive, unless you happen to have been tasked with 1,200 words on the topic of Emma’s new baby.



For more on the market, including this year's figures across each major department, see the full 2026 Salary Survey here, or for help with recruiting or your charity job search, just contact our specialists, call us on 020 7820 7300 or email info@harrishill.co.uk