2026 Salary Survey: market overview

The 2026 Harris Hill Salary Survey is out now (and available to download here), with the latest rates for charity and not-for-profit sector jobs at all levels, as well as expert insight and analysis from our specialists.

We'll share the reports on each specialist area over the coming weeks, but first, here's our take on what's been happening over the past year in the charity recruitment market as a whole.

Welcome to the 2026 Harris Hill Salary Survey, your annual guide to charity and not for profit sector salaries in the UK.

It’s drawn from the salaries of third sector jobs in the year to 31 March 2026, in which organisations have not only had to contend with challenging economic conditions (to say the least), but for many, reduced income, with Charities Aid Foundation research reporting total donations in 2025 having been £1.4 billion lower than in 2024, a fall of just over 9%.

It’s something of a testament to charities’ resilience then, that none of that is immediately evident in salary levels, which have inched up modestly for most roles, just as they would in any more typical, business-as-usual year.

Not everywhere, admittedly. Recent Charity Finance Group research found 22% of organisations having had to freeze or even reduce salaries, while elsewhere, salary increases may be less a sign of prosperity than recognition that freezing them would simply damage morale without achieving anything like the kind of savings required.

How has the market changed?

For some organisations, the only way to cut sufficient spending has been to cut jobs altogether, often in quite significant numbers, including a fair number of large, household-name charities where redundancies have run well into three figures, while hiring has also slowed dramatically to keep the newly-diminished headcount down.

That’s readily apparent to anyone who’s recently looked at sector job boards like CharityJob, who’ve reported a 12% fall in vacancy numbers this year, on the heels of two previous annual falls that amount to a 45% decline since 2022/23. Our own figures bear this out, falling 43.9% over the same period.

This alone would have made the job market almost twice as competitive, but figures also suggest that the number of candidates seeking those jobs has increased by 130% over the same period, giving you a sense of how dramatically the market has swung against charity job-seekers in just three short years. 



What are the consequences?

With far more candidates than available jobs, we’ve seen a sharp rise in the number of applicants – often highly experienced and eminently employable - who have now been out of work for six months or more.

In these cases, salaries tend to take a distant back seat to the more pressing issue of having a job at all, and if unable to find anything at their level, many are applying for more junior, lesser-paid roles, simply to stay in the workforce. Yet while some hiring managers see their experience as a plus, others are reluctant to take on someone more experienced than themselves, and nearly all expect them to vanish at the first opportunity to regain their ‘rightful’ seniority.

That’s not entirely unfounded, but with so few opportunities available, the priority for many – particularly those who’ve ridden the redundancy rollercoaster already – isn’t necessarily salary or seniority, but something secure and safe from any more unexpected, stomach-churning drops. 

Less is not more

It’s no easy time for employers either though. In many cases, staffing budgets have declined while demand for their services has increased. So how can this circle be squared?

There’s no simple solution, but three current trends seem pertinent here.

One is the proliferation of 12-month contract roles, which threaten to outnumber permanent posts. Most are fully intended to become permanent, but funding can’t be guaranteed far enough ahead to make that commitment from the outset.

Another is the remarkable rise of part-time roles. Until recently, something of a rarity on our site that would prompt a flood of applications. Now, several orders of magnitude more common but like trying to sell despair to Hull.

That’s partly because the cost of living has swept anything less than a full-time salary off the table for many, and partly due to remits that would seem almost comically overambitious for someone working seven days a week, let alone three or four. Many of these are transparently full time roles for which employers could only afford a part time salary, where candidates fully expect to end up working five days a week while only being paid for three. We’ve heard more appealing propositions.

All of which leaves us with the third and arguably most promising means of delivering more with fewer resources: AI.

Although experts differ as to whether the new technology will enslave humanity and kill us all, or whether that could be up to five years away, they do at least agree that it will probably obliterate most of our jobs. 

But while we can’t entirely exonerate it as a suspect in the falling number of junior vacancies this year, we’re yet to see substantial evidence of this at significant scale.

What we are seeing is that charities are certainly keen to harness the benefits of AI, but for now at least, the focus is on how it can be used to lower costs, improve processes and deliver services more efficiently. That’s not to say that redundancies won’t result from this further down the line, but we’re also seeing at least some jobs being created as organisations seek to build their AI expertise at speed.

Meanwhile, candidates have been quick to set Claude and co to work on CVs and supporting statements, raising overall standards of style and presentation.

However, in bad news for anyone accustomed to relying on slick presentation to elevate their slightly mediocre content — if you can imagine such a thing — this can leave little to choose between them on those grounds, putting the spotlight firmly on the fundamentals like facts, examples and experience.

The (ongoing) rise of the Frankenjob...

Back in 2024 we highlighted the growing penchant for fusing senior positions into strange new hybrids like Director of Finance and Resources or Head of Brand and Operations.

Two years on, these creations continue to multiply, cannibalising senior posts in marketing, fundraising, finance, operations and more, the result being a significant reduction in the number of senior posts in the sector.

That’s proving problematic at all levels, leaving many of those nearing the top of the escalator nowhere to go, preventing those just beneath them moving up, and so on all the way down: a recipe for frustration and overcrowding.

Factor in those who are having to move in the wrong direction to avoid being pushed out altogether and the whole thing seems perilously close to being taken out of service, forcing everyone to retrain as a chatbot.

Despite a few hybrid roles having diverged back into separate positions, this seems unlikely to be an option in many cases, as the necessary budgets will no longer be there.

With no known antidote, the Frankenjob may well be here to stay, so we can only salute the determination, resilience and commitment of staff across the sector to somehow making it work, continuing to provide the essential services and support that so many rely on.

Even if they have to do it with a job title that everyone gets bored of typing long before the end.

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