How much do non-executive directors get paid in the UK?

Private company data is inherently less reliable than listed data, because private companies do not disclose. The figures below come from search firms tracking advertised and completed appointments rather than from published accounts. Treat them as market intelligence, not as a benchmark you can cite in a fee negotiation without corroboration.

Because the fee has been treated as a fixed cost while the job has expanded. Research published by Board Agenda in December 2025 found FTSE 100 non-executive fees have lagged CPI inflation by 11.8% over the previous decade. Over the same period, board time commitment, regulatory scrutiny and the personal accountability attached to a board seat have all risen materially.

The nominal figure still went up — Spencer Stuart records a 3% increase in the FTSE 150 average in its 2025 index. It simply went up more slowly than the cost of everything else.

The implication for a portfolio career is uncomfortable. Three private-company seats at the average fee is around £45,000 a year before tax, for forty to sixty days of work carrying personal liability. A reasonable income, not a wealth-creating one, and its real value is shrinking.

There is no published benchmark for this, so here is ours. Across our network of 4,836 directors, advisers and C-suite operators, 26 members have deployed £850,000 into companies they were introduced to — an average of £32,700 each. That is roughly 2.2 times the average annual private-company non-executive fee, committed to a single company, at risk.

By stage, the tickets we see fall into three bands: £25,000 to £100,000 at pre-seed and seed, £100,000 to £500,000 at Series A, and £250,000 to £1 million at Series B and beyond.

The point is not that investing beats being paid. It is that the fee and the equity are different products. The fee pays for your time and it is worth less every year. Only the stake pays for your judgement being right. If you are only negotiating the fee, you are negotiating the smaller half.

Five things, roughly in this order of value. The equity, if there is any: how much, on what terms, purchased or granted, and what happens on a down round. The fee, benchmarked against the tier table above rather than against what you were last paid. The time commitment in writing — days per year, meetings per year, and what counts, because "as required" is how a twelve-day role becomes a thirty-day one.

Then directors' and officers' cover: the limit, whether it survives insolvency, and whether there is a separate non-executive limit. No cover is a finding about the company, not an administrative gap. Finally, committee work and whether it is paid, which below the listed market it usually is not — worth knowing before you chair the audit committee for free.

If you are weighing a fee against a shareholding, our guide on whether a non-executive director should invest in the company they advise sets out the governance position and the conflicts to manage. For how equity is structured when it is granted rather than bought, see advisory shares explained.