CEO pay rises have sparked “inflationary spirals” in some of the biggest-spending trusts – as the wage gap between academy chiefs and their next-in-command widens by up to £65,000.
Schools Week’s annual executive pay investigation has this year included 1,800 trusts, making it probably the largest ever analysis.
More than 60 trusts had leaders paid at least £200,000 last year, with 95 per cent of them awarded rises.
National Governance Association deputy CEO Sam Henson said salary benchmarking is “in some cases, leading to inflationary spirals”.
“[These] don’t come with an accompanying narrative on how this deals with the massive pressures the sector is under, namely money being alarmingly in short supply, ongoing recruitment and retention challenges, and insufficient accountability mechanisms,” he added.
The growing CEO pay premium
Our analysis suggests the gap is widening between CEOs and the rest in the highest-paying trusts.
Nineteen of the 31 highest-remunerated chief executives (see table) saw this grow. Carlton Academy Trust registered the largest increase (£65,000) as Adrian Kneeshaw’s pay rose to at least £260,000.
A spokesperson for the MAT claimed the figure in its accounts was “a gross misrepresentation of [Kneeshaw’s] actual pay”.
This is because it includes earnings from “significant external consultancy work” worth “tens of thousands of pounds”.
To “enhance recruitment and retention of top leaders”, Carlton also allows staff to get a “higher base salary” if they decide not to be part of pension scheme.
Kneeshaw’s “true salary” was about £185,000, they added.
At Flagship Learning, the only standalone trust in the top 31, the gap rose by £45,000. CEO Martin Haworth – who moved into the role last year, having long been its headteacher – earned at least £275,000.
Chair of trustees Joe Larrigan attributed this to the SAT’s decision to bring “together the roles of CEO, executive headteacher and accountability for our community trading arm”. The “restructure has delivered an overall cost saving on senior salaries”, he added.
Meanwhile, the gap remained the same at six high-paying trusts and closed in just six others.
Academy trust CEOs on over £300k
Sir Dan Moynihan, of the Harris Federation, was England’s best-paid CEO, the first to cross the £500,000 threshold.
The trust has five other members of staff earning at least £200,000. One, who makes between £250,000 and £260,000, would have been placed in the top 16 highest-earning CEOs in our analysis. Despite this, Harris had the largest CEO pay gap (£255,000).
The three other academy bosses on more than £300,000 also saw their wages increase. Leigh Academies Trust leader Simon Beamish received the largest rise (15 per cent) as his pay jumped to at least £350,000.
A spokesperson said his rise “reflects a cost-of-living increase in line with that of teachers” and was “linked to the continued growth” of the MAT and his “performance”.
Nearly half of the trust’s academies were ‘outstanding’, they added.
Dozens paid over £200k
In all, 64 CEOs earned more than £200,000. On average they oversaw 17 academies, but 19 ran trusts with 10 schools or fewer.
Sharon O’Ryan, of Pay in Education, said there was usually “a strong positive linear correlation between CEO pay and pupil numbers, but this is predominantly in the early phases of trust growth. The strength of the correlation diminishes with continued growth, flattening to a maximum salary for the job regardless of size,” she added.
Fourteen (22 per cent) of the highest earners are women, similar to last year’s 23 per cent. The Confederation of School Trust’s executive pay survey found women CEOs earn about £8,600 less than men, despite the “gap narrowing slightly”.
All but three of the 64 received pay rises. Five registered increases of 20 per cent or more over the period.
At the New Vision Trust in London, chief executive Shahed Ahmed saw his pay rise by 30 per cent to at least £260,000.
Ahmed said this was because he moved out of a pension scheme last year and received about £50,000 in “salary in lieu of pension contributions”. This “unfairly distorts my figures in more ways than one”.
Other leaders also said their rises were down to this.
CEO snubs £25k boost
One member of the £200,000 club revealed he was offered a £25,000 hike but turned it down, as “it felt like the right thing to do”. They added: “Everybody’s talking about schools struggling and I thought it was a good time to reduce my burden on the trust a tiny bit.”
The Schools Week pay audit last year – which analysed about 400 trusts – showed almost three-quarters reported rises of some kind. Among those trusts, 280 (70 per cent) moved up pay bandings this time around.
The biggest rise last year was seen at the Danes Educational Trust, near Watford, where CEO Dr Josephine Valentine went from earning between £115,000 and £120,000 to at least £180,000.
Dominic Richards, the chain’s COO, said this was because Valentine’s “commitment increased to full-time for nine months and 0.8 for the remaining three months”.
This allowed her to take on “additional duties as executive head of a school in special measures that had been identified as being at risk of imminent failure”.
Her pay reduced to about £165,000 this year.
50% cut after academy trust rethink
Of the 400 trusts, pay remained the same at 48 (12 per cent) and dropped at 35 (9 per cent) in 2023-24.
The biggest fall was at St Cuthbert’s Roman Catholic Academy Trust (57 per cent), which until this year was a regular in top-pay tables.
In 2022-23, Ged Fitzpatrick was paid just under £288,000. But its new chief executive received between £120,000 and £130,000 the following year.
A spokesperson said Fitzpatrick’s departure in 2023 “gave trustees the opportunity to reconsider the roles and responsibilities” of the leadership team.
‘Remember the sniff test’
The latest report produced by the Kreston group, a network of accountancy firms, found salaries had grown “across all trust types”.
Those running medium and large MATs were given “increases of 5 to 6 per cent on average”. Teachers were given a 6.5 per cent rise in the same year.
In the biggest trusts, chief executives were paid, on average, almost £190,000.
Nathan Jeremiah, managing director of school resource management adviser supplier EPI, stressed that many trusts should employ “the sniff test” when calculating pay levels.
“If it doesn’t pass that test, then you’ve got to go back to the drawing board, change the trusts you are looking at for the benchmarking or ask yourself, ‘is this value for money?’”
The highest-paid person across more than 1,800 trusts whose accounts we analysed received, on average, £119,000. This is less than usual estimates because the analysis picked up smaller SATs that are not usually examined.
CST’s annual pay report shows charity and public service chiefs receive, on average, under £145,000. Wages for similar roles in the private sector hover around £270,000.
Difference in academy CEO salaries widening
However, our outlier analysis – which calculated the expected pay for leaders based on pupil numbers – showed nearly a quarter (415 trusts) paid their CEOs at 15 per cent or more over expected levels. The figure was 19 per cent last year.
The biggest outlier was Brampton Manor. Our figures suggested a trust of its size would usually pay its leader £135,000, which is nearly £200,000 less than CEO Dayo Olukoshi’s actual package.
However, 27 per cent of trusts (483) were paid at least 15 per cent less than expected levels. This is up from 24 per cent last year.
Our investigation also found nine instances where the leaders of single-academy trusts were receiving more than the maximum that a local authority-maintained school boss can be paid.
Charlton Park Academy, a London special school, paid Mark Dale-Emberton at least £215,000. Accounts show £45,000 to £50,000 of this was for “consultancy and additional hours/duties”.
Two others – the New River Trust and Queen Elizabeth’s School Barnet – paid their leaders between £190,000 and £200,000.
But EPI’s Jeremiah, who is also a trust COO, noted there is a “difference in accountability” in the roles.
Those running council schools have the “safety net” of the authority, whereas at SATs “trustees are accountable and it’s the headteacher who’s accountable to Parliament as the accounting officer”.
£20k to ward off head-hunters
Our figures suggest that Amanda Nicholson, of the Kings Academy Trust in Manchester, received the highest pay packet per pupil (£320.64/child) last year. The chain consists of one primary, one special school and two APs.
Nicholson’s salary is “temporary” while the trust expands to 10 academies by 2030.
A spokesperson noted that she was “paid a recruitment and retention allowance of an additional £20,000” to “prevent [her from] being head-hunted”. A further £27,000 was given for “qualifications gained” and being an Ofsted inspector.
The lowest-paid leader by pupil was United Learning Trust CEO Sir Jon Coles, who earned £4.43 for every child across his 90 schools.
He was followed by Oasis Community Learning’s John Barneby (£5.77). A spokesperson said: “Remuneration is purposefully set to ensure fair compensation while holding true to our principles of equity and justice”.
In October, the Department for Education named and shamed the 37 leaders it wrote to in 2023 to seek assurances over their pay. All the trusts were “found to be compliant”.
But at least 30 bumped up their chief exec’s pay after being quizzed by officials.
Schools Week understands that some trusts received letters asking them to justify their levels of remuneration earlier this month.
‘Don’t set arbitrary limits’
The EDSK think tank last year called for mandatory CEO pay scales, capped at £263,000 and with fines for those who do not follow it.
But Samira Sadeghi, CST’s director of governance, stressed that “no two trusts are the same” and they have “challenges specific to their context”.
While the NGA’s Henson warned against imposing “arbitrary limits”, he said the growing gap between “CEO pay and other senior leaders risks undermining the collaborative leadership essential to school improvement”.
He added: “Disproportionate increases of up to 30 per cent become really unpalatable for many – and more thought needs to be given to how these rises can be rationalised.”
