The average salary of the chief executives of the UK’s top-100 charities is £166,048, exclusive new research by civilsociety.co.uk has shown.

This represents an increase of around 10 per cent on the average salary in 2009, which was £151,563.

The figure is contained in the Leadership Survey 2011 published in the September edition of Charity Finance magazine.  The research, which explores the age, gender, background and pay of the chief executives of the UK biggest 100 charities, is carried out every two years.

In this year’s study, 27 of the CEOs profiled were new to the list, and of these newcomers just one in ten came to their job from the private sector. Around half came directly from the public sector and one-third came from a charity post.  The remaining 10 per cent joined from the armed forces.

The top five earners in the list were all men, and when their salaries were removed the average salary fell to £138, 949.

Forty of the 100 leaders were interviewed as part of the study and this sample said that their most time-consuming task was service delivery, followed by policy development and dealing with trustees.

Subscribers to Charity Finance and civilsociety.co.uk can read the full survey here.