Pay of leader of Harris academy chain nears �500,000

The pay of the leader of England’s second-largest academy chain, the Harris Federation, approached �500,000 last year –and will break through that barrier in the current academic year if last year’s increase is repeated.

Sir Dan Moynihan received £485-£490,000 in remuneration in 2022-23 – an increase of at least £25,000 on the £455-£460,000 for the previous year, newly-published accounts for the 52-school trust reveal.

An increase by that amount would have made this rise exactly in line, in percentage terms, with the national pay award for teachers in 2022-23, which saw salaries grow by 5.4 per cent. However, Sir Dan’s increase may have been as high as 7.7 per cent, depending on where in the published band* his actual salary was.

Sir Dan’s salary has now almost exactly doubled in the 13 years since the Conservatives came to power in 2010, and of course expanded the academies scheme exponentially. It was £243,027 in 2009-10. Inflation over the period 2009 to 2022 (the start of the relevant academic years to which these two figures relate) was 40 per cent. And the national pay rate for experienced teachers outside London went up only 19 per cent over the period, from £35,929 to £43,685.

That means Sir Dan’s salary has gone from being 6.8 times the amount of that experienced teacher (at the top of the classroom pay scale, on point U3), in 2009-10, to being 11.1 times, in 2022-23.