Charity Salaries 2025: How Does Yours Stack Up?

How does your pay measure up to average charity salaries? How much could you get paid if you moved into the sector? Which charity roles are the most competitive? How would your pay change if you became more senior, moved to a larger charity or went fully remote?

The CharityJob Salary Report 2025  delves into charity sector salaries, broken down by job type, experience level, charity size, and workplace type. Beyond the numbers, it also provides insights into trends in the charity recruitment market, how charity salaries compare to the National Living Wage and London Living Wage, different working arrangements in the sector, and more.

This year, we’ve also refined our methodology, to better align with other sector analysis and government reports. A key change to note is that average charity salaries are now calculated as the median, rather than the mean.

Key insights from the CharityJob Salary Report 2025

Charity sector recruitment market trends

We moved to a recruiter-led market

If you’ve moved jobs in the last year, then you may have found you needed to complete a lot more applications before you were actually offered a job. This can be disheartening, but rest assured that it has less to do with the quality of your applications or interview skills and more to do with the state of the market.

Three years ago, there were loads of jobs available and fewer candidates looking, so competition was low and you could call the shots with recruiters. Sadly, this is no longer the case. In 2024, the number of paid jobs on the CharityJob website decreased by 20%, mirroring broader recruitment market trends across the UK. At the same time, we saw a significant increase of 56%  in the number of clicks on the ‘Apply’ button for roles. This data suggests a shift to a recruiter-led market and means there’s increased competition for available roles.

Hybrid working continues to increase

Over the past few years, jobs with hybrid working arrangements have been on the rise. In 2024, this growth continued, with the proportion of hybrid roles increasing from 45% in 2023 to 50% in 2024. At the same time, the proportion of on-site roles decreased.

Remote roles are the most popular

It probably won’t surprise you that remote roles were the most in demand from candidates. But the sector’s preference for remote work and flexible working shone through stronger than ever, with remote roles attracting more than seven times the number of clicks on ‘Apply’ than on-site roles and four times more than hybrid roles. So, if you’re looking for a new remote role then you could be doing even more applications.

Deep dive into charity salaries

Average charity salary

In 2024, the average charity salary (calculated using the median) for a role posted on the CharityJob website was £35,000 – a 3% increase from 2023.

Charity salaries in London were 24% higher than charity salaries outside London

The median salary for a role in London was £37,500, significantly higher than £30,282 for roles located outside London.

Finance roles pay the most and admin and support work roles pay the least

Of the main job categories, finance roles had the highest median salary at £49,999.  In contrast, roles in admin and support work were paid the least with median salaries at £29,999 and £30,000 respectively.

Senior executive salaries grew the most year-on-year

All experience levels saw increases in median salary from 2023. The largest increase was for senior executive roles with 6%.

Salary is a very important factor to consider when making informed decisions about your charity career. While the motivation to work in the sector often goes beyond financial reward, using charity salary benchmarking can help you make sure that you’re being fairly compensated for your skills and dedication.

Download the CharityJob Salary Report 2025 to discover more salary information and recruitment trends in the sector.