The Datum Report

Occupation 1111 · Managers, directors and senior officials

Chief executives and senior officials

Half of full-time chief executives and senior officials in the UK earn more than £99,944 a year, and half earn less.

Chief executives and senior officials head large enterprises and organisations. They plan, direct and co-ordinate, with directors and managers, the resources necessary for the various functions and specialist activities of these enterprises and organisations. The chief executives of hospitals will be classified in this unit group. Senior officials in national government direct the operations of government departments. Senior officials in local government participate in the implementation of local government policies and ensure that legal, statutory and other provisions concerning the running of a local authority are observed. Senior officials of special interest organisations ensure that legal, statutory and other regulations concerning the running of trade associations, employers’ associations, learned societies, trades unions, charitable organisations and similar bodies are observed. Chief executives and senior officials also act as representatives of the organisations concerned for the purposes of high-level consultation and negotiation.

How people enter it

Entry may be by appointment or internal promotion, as appropriate, and is usually based on relevant experience although candidates may also require academic or professional qualifications for some posts.

What the work involves

• analyses economic, social, legal and other data, and plans, formulates and directs at strategic level the operation of a company or organisation
• consults with subordinates to formulate, implement and review company/organisation policy, authorises funding for policy implementation programmes and institutes reporting, auditing and control systems
• prepares, or arranges for the preparation of, reports, budgets, forecasts or other information
• plans and controls the allocation of resources and the selection of senior staff
• evaluates government/local authority departmental activities, discusses problems with government/local authority officials and administrators and formulates departmental policy
• negotiates and monitors contracted out services provided to the local authority by the private sector
• studies and acts upon any legislation that may affect the local authority
• stimulates public interest by providing publicity, giving lectures and interviews and organising appeals for a variety of causes
• directs or undertakes the preparation, publication and dissemination of reports and other information of interest to members and other interested parties

Also called

Chairman · Chief executive · Civil servant (grade 5 & above) · Diplomat · Vice President

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for chief executives and senior officials, full-time employees, 2023 to 2025. Each point is that year's ASHE April snapshot as published — revisions are not backfilled into earlier years, and a year ONS withheld is a gap rather than a joined line.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Year-on-year change

The change from each year to the next, in per cent, computed from the figures in the chart above — so the two cannot disagree.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Pay by region

Median gross annual pay for full-time employees, ranked, against the UK figure. 2 of 11 regions are published: ONS withholds a cell where the survey sample cannot support it, and those are shown as gaps rather than dropped — an absent region is not a region without the work in it.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Period 2025. Table

Every regional figure

ONS does not publish occupational pay below region. Cells the survey could not support are shown as withheld, with its reason — adding a region split to a specific occupation leaves roughly a tenth of cells publishable.

Common questions

Classified alongside this

Elected officers and representatives