The number of super-sized salaries in the charity sector has surged, with some bosses earning millions of pounds, Telegraph analysis has found.
Analysis of Charity Commission data shows a 35.7 per cent increase in the number of charitable organisations paying their employees more than £400,000 in the past five years.
Meanwhile, the number of people working for charities earning more than £400,000 has increased by 42.2 per cent.
On Saturday night, the Charity Commission said it would “take action” if a “line is crossed” by charities paying executives more than is considered reasonable.
David Holdsworth, the Charity Commission chief executive, said: “Large and complex charities must attract talented people to run them, but the public rightly expects the demands of executive jobs in charities to be balanced with the selflessness that underpins what it means to be charitable. So do we.”
Mr Holdsworth continued: “Careful decisions about pay foster public trust and confidence in the sector as well as best serve the charity’s beneficiaries now and into the future. Trustees are legally bound to make prudent decisions on all charity spending, including pay, and if this line is crossed, we will take action.
“In a sector that contributes almost £100 billion to our country, less than 5 per cent of charities pay anyone a salary above £60,000. Many charities run only on volunteers.”
In 2019, when it was revealed that MSI Reproductive Choices or “Marie Stopes” had paid £430,000 to Simon Cooke, its chief executive, the Charity Commission publicly condemned the paycheque at the time and promised a wider investigation of executive pay in the sector.
Since then, to increase public accountability, it said it had introduced greater transparency on every charity’s entry on the commission’s public register.
The most generous charity in Britain in terms of salaries is the Wellcome Trust, the health and life sciences foundation which runs the Wellcome Collection museum and library.
The group pays 20 employees a salary of over £400,000, analysis shows.
The highest-paid person in the UK charity sector is thought to be Nick Moakes, the Wellcome Trust’s chief investment officer, who makes over £5 million a year according to the Trust’s latest accounts. This represents an uplift in his pay of over half a million pounds since 2023.
Mr Moakes, who is due to step down in March, is credited with a huge expansion of the group’s investment portfolio.
In total there are 44 charity workers in Britain earning above the figure, spread across 19 different charities.
Five years ago the tally was 27 people spread across 14 charities.
Other high-paying charities include the Church Commission for England, which looks after the property assets of the Church of England, and Nuffield Health, the country’s biggest healthcare charity.
Two major private schools, Highgate and Roedean, are among the highest-paying charitable organisations in the UK.
Employees in the sector earning more than £100,000 have also ballooned in the past five years.
The number of charities paying employees over £100,000 has increased by 22 per cent since 2019. The number of charity employees earning above the figure has increased by 63 per cent.
Some 5,608 charity workers across 1,581 organisations enjoy these wages, up from 4,000 people at 1,288 charities five years ago.
Just five percent of charities in Britain have an annual income over £1 million.
Around 75 per cent have an income less than £100,000 a year and 45 per cent take less than £10,000.
Defenders of the sector note that registered charities spend £20 billion more today on charitable activity than they did in 2018 – a 30 per cent increase.
