Chief of staff salary · base, bonus and package, 2026
What a chief of staff earns, by place, experience and package
A chief of staff salary in 2026 averages £78,289 in base pay, on PayScale’s figures from 94 UK salary profiles, and the range runs from £45,000 to £130,000.
PayScale puts the London average at £85,306.
The range is wide because the title covers very different seats.
Base is only part of the cost: bonus, pension and employer’s National Insurance sit on top.
When you hire a chief of staff through us, we send a shortlist of 3–5, each with pay or day rate, availability and IR35 position set out.
How a brief runswhat we undertake
- 01Brief30-MINUTE SCOPING CALLDay 0
- 02Shortlist of 3–5VETTED · RATE BENCHMARK · IR35After the brief
- 03InterviewsYOU MEET THE SHORTLISTYour diary
- 04Scoped startFIRST-MONTH OUTCOMES AGREEDYou set the date
- 05Fractional, interim and permanentIR35 POSITION SET OUTOn every brief
Shortlist3–5
15 minutes · video or phone
Book 15 minutes to hire a chief of staff
Tell us the scope and the days a week. We come back with Chief of Staff candidates, their day rates and availability.
- 0115 minutes, video or phone
- 02We scope the role and the days a week
- 03A shortlist of 3–5 after the call
- 04Fractional, interim and permanent briefs
Pick a day that suits · live availability
On the board · last 3 months
Chief of staff roles jobs on the board
No Chief of staff roles roles on the board in the last three months. Showing operations leadership roles instead.
Chief of staff roles on the board
How fractional recruitment agencies compare is set out in one place, including how we work: a Chief of Staff brief and a shortlist of three to five.
01/ the role
What a chief of staff does, and what sets the pay
A chief of staff works directly for the head of an organisation or a division, usually the chief executive.
PayScale describes the seat as the eyes and ears of senior executives: attending meetings with department heads, coordinating across the business and helping to carry the executive’s plans through.
Many also run the leadership team’s operating rhythm and its change programmes.
The title covers different seats, and that is what spreads the pay.
At one end, the chief of staff grows out of executive support.
Lily Shippen’s 2026 salary survey lists the role in its business support tables, and says senior EAs and chiefs of staff increasingly carry project delivery, stakeholder management and strategic oversight.
At the other end, the chief of staff is a strategy or operations lead to the chief executive.
Experience comes next.
PayScale puts the average total pay of an early-career chief of staff (1–4 years) at £66,997 and of a mid-career one (5–9 years) at £86,088, each including bonus.
There is no single qualification for the seat.
Some chiefs of staff hold the CMI’s Chartered Manager status, a professional credential in management and leadership.
Where the role runs change for the chief executive, the CIPD’s change management factsheet is a useful guide to what the work involves.
02/ scope
How to set the pay when you hire a chief of staff
1. Decide which seat you are hiring
Write down what the role owns: the executive’s diary, papers and follow-through, or strategy, planning and cross-team projects.
The first sits nearer the executive assistant market; the second nearer senior operations and strategy pay.
The scope sets the band before the title does.
Acas publishes free job description templates to set the scope down in writing.
2. Choose the route
A permanent appointment suits an executive who needs the support every day: hire a chief of staff on that basis.
If the work fits into part of the week, a fractional chief of staff is paid only for the days bought.
3. Set base, bonus and equity together
PayScale puts the chief of staff bonus at £3,000–£30,000 a year in the UK.
In a growth business, part of the package may be equity: HMRC’s Enterprise Management Incentives are the tax-advantaged share option scheme most smaller companies look at first.
Whatever the package, the hire must receive a written statement of employment particulars on their first day.
What we do on a chief of staff brief
We recruit permanent, fractional, interim, part-time and temporary executives, and non-executive directors.
We send a shortlist of 3–5, each with pay or day rate, availability and IR35 position set out, and every candidate goes through our five-stage vetting first.
Fractional roles on the board are listed on fractional chief of staff jobs.
03/ the board
What the board holds.
A read of the roles on the board on this page, counted as they stand: how each is engaged, whether the posting gives the days and the rate, and where the work happens.
On this board, last 90 days · 2 roles · operations leadership
Engagement
- Fractional1
- Interim1
Days a week
- Stated in the posting1
- Not stated1
Day rate
- Verified rate0
- Estimated (est)0
- Rate not stated2
Work arrangement (as the job feed classifies it)
- Remote0
- Hybrid0
- On-site0
- Not classified2
Newest posting on the board: 2 Sept 2026.
04/ the route
Fractional, interim or permanent?
Four taps. The answer names the route for the seat and the page that covers it.
The route · Fractional
A fractional chief of staff.The work fills part of the week, so buy the days it needs.
A fractional chief of staff holds the seat on agreed days for as long as the seat is needed, and works for other clients on the rest.
The route · Interim
An interim chief of staff.The work fills the week, and it has an end: a programme, a cover, a transaction.
An interim chief of staff takes the seat full time for that stretch and hands it over when it is done.
The route · Interim, then permanent
Interim now, a permanent chief of staff after.The seat is full time and long term, and the need is now.
An interim chief of staff holds it while the permanent search runs, so the seat is not left empty.
The route · Permanent
A permanent chief of staff.A full-time seat that sits at the table for years is a permanent hire.
There is time to run a search, so run one.
05/ rates by stage
Chief of staff salary by source, place and experience
Permanent chief of staff pay as each publisher states it, all 2026. PayScale’s figures come from salary profiles people report themselves; Lily Shippen’s from its own salary survey as a business support recruiter. Each measures something different.
06/ economics
What the salary costs the business, beyond the base
A salary is not the whole cost of an employee.
For 2026 to 2027, employer’s National Insurance is 15% on earnings above £5,000 a year (HMRC rates and thresholds).
Under automatic enrolment, the employer must pay at least 3% into a workplace pension, in most schemes on earnings between £6,240 and £50,270 a year (GOV.UK).
Many schemes pay more.
On PayScale’s £78,289 average, employer’s National Insurance comes to about £10,990 a year and the minimum pension to about £1,320, so the base costs about £90,600 before any bonus or benefits.
That is our arithmetic, a guide to the budget and not a quote.
The bonus is pay too.
HMRC treats a cash bonus as earnings, with PAYE tax and Class 1 National Insurance deducted through payroll, so budget employer’s National Insurance on the bonus as well as the base.
07/ vetting
How we vet chiefs of staff
What we undertake on every brief, before a candidate reaches you.
- 01
Qualification screen
Verify Chief of Staff tenure, sector context and stage fit.
SOURCING - 02
Mandate fit
Match to your situation — stage, board dynamics, timing.
MATCHING - 03
Reference deep-dive
We take references ourselves, from recent past clients — real outcomes, not titles.
VERIFY - 04
Shortlist
Three to five candidates with day rate, availability and IR35 position set out.
SHORTLIST OF 3–5
08/ chief of staff salary uk
Chief of staff salary UK: the national figures side by side
PayScale’s chief of staff salary UK average is £78,289 in base pay, from 94 salary profiles people reported themselves and updated in March 2026.
Its range runs from £45,000 to £130,000, with a median of £78,000, and its bonus range from £3,000 to £30,000.
Outside London, Lily Shippen puts a permanent chief of staff at £70,000–£120,000, both in Manchester and across the rest of the UK.
No source we can cite publishes a figure for each city.
The ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings measures employee pay by occupation, but it does not publish a separate figure for the chief of staff title.
Read any single figure as one view of the market.
The useful question is which seat you are hiring: executive support at the top of its range, or a strategy and operations lead to the chief executive.
09/ chief of staff salary london
Chief of staff salary London, where most of the roles are
The chief of staff salary London employers pay sits above the national figures.
PayScale’s London average is £85,306 in base pay, from 59 salary profiles, against £78,289 across the UK.
Its London range runs from £51,000 to £144,000, and the bonus from £5,000 to £30,000.
Lily Shippen’s 2026 survey gives a higher band for London: £80,000–£150,000 for a permanent chief of staff, against £50,000–£70,000 for an executive assistant.
The survey draws on the recruiter’s own hiring activity and market insight, not on a count of advertised salaries.
10/ the other routes
Salary, part-time or fractional: the other ways to fill the seat
A permanent salary buys a chief of staff every day, with notice on both sides.
A part-time employee is paid pro rata, and must not be treated less favourably than a comparable full-time one (GOV.UK).
A fractional chief of staff works part of the week on a day rate or monthly retainer, and an interim covers the seat full-time for a fixed period.
We know of no independent published day rate for either yet, so we set one out for every candidate on the shortlist instead.
For this salary spread across working days (our arithmetic, not a market rate), see fractional chief of staff salary and interim chief of staff salary.
11/ questions
Chief of staff salary FAQ
The questions people ask before bringing in a chief of staff.
Book 15 minutes · shortlist of 3–5
Bring the brief. We architect the team.
A shortlist of 3–5 with day rate, availability and IR35 position set out, after five-stage vetting.
