Revealed: How the list of £250k-plus academy leaders remains dominated by men

First look at top academy pay rankings for 2023-24 shows 10 people received quarter-million salaries.

It took a salary of more than £250,000 last year to make the top 10 highest-paid leaders of academy trusts – and only one member of that exclusive club was a woman.

A first, rough, look at the highest echelons of academy pay for 2023-24 shows males continuing their dominance of the highly-remunerated ranks, with all four of those on salaries of more than £300,000 being males.

The average pay increase for the sector’s highest-paid people, assuming salaries were in the middle of published bands for both of the past two years, was 7.7 per cent. This was higher than the 6.5 per cent increase given to teachers nationally last year, via the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document.

At least nine people on the list had total remuneration packages – pay plus employers’ pensions contributions – of at least £300,000 in 2023-24, this website’s look at the accounts of trusts with historically high pay packages has also shown. One couple who between them lead an academy trust received nearly £500,000 in total last year.

And one academy chain – the Harris Federation – saw the number of its people paid salaries of at least £200,000 last year doubling, from three to six.