What does a non-executive director cost in the UK?

Pure Executive's 2024 review looked at disclosed fees across listed, AIM-quoted and private businesses. Across the fourteen private businesses in the sample the average non-executive fee was £41,686, with individual fees running from about £20,000 to £44,000. Several of those boards paid a day rate instead, at £1,200 to £1,500 a day. Average chair fees in the same private sample were £65,000.

AIM-quoted companies sat slightly above private ones, at an average non-executive fee of £43,394 and an average chair fee of £84,012. The single lowest individual fee reported in the study belonged to an AIM company paying its non-executive £32,749 while its chair took £55,673, which is a useful reminder that a quoted board does not automatically mean a large fee.

Across our network of growth company mandates the pattern behind those numbers is consistent: fees cluster low at seed, where cash is scarce and the appointment is often part-equity, and rise as the board takes on audit and remuneration responsibilities.

The Spencer Stuart average of £80,888 rose 3% on the previous year and continues a decade-long climb from £63,200 in 2015. Within the FTSE 150 the spread is wide: companies ranked 1 to 10 paid an average base fee of £108,736, while those ranked 101 to 150 paid £75,605. BP paid the highest single base fee at £174,500 and Big Yellow Group the lowest at £48,118.

Listed boards also pay for specific responsibilities on top of the base fee. The average additional fee for a senior independent director was £24,911. Audit committee chairs took an average of £27,649, remuneration committee chairs £25,825, and risk committee chairs £41,494. Rolls-Royce paid the highest audit committee chair fee in the sample at £90,000.

None of this transfers directly to a company with thirty staff. What it is useful for is direction of travel and structure: it shows that responsibility, not attendance, is what gets paid for, and it gives you a defensible ceiling when a candidate quotes a listed-company number at a private company board.

In private companies equity is a normal part of the package. The Institute of Directors' 2026 business paper on non-executive remuneration states that shares and share options may sometimes be appropriate in smaller, unlisted companies, particularly to attract directors with specialist expertise, and that they should be used mainly in private or smaller companies.

For listed companies the position is different. The UK Corporate Governance Code provides that remuneration for non-executive directors should not include share options or other performance-related elements, on the grounds that independence is undermined when pay depends on the share price. That is the origin of the widely repeated view that non-executives should not hold options. It is a listed-company rule, not a private-company one.

We do not publish a typical equity percentage, because no named UK survey we can cite publishes one. Ranges circulate widely on advisory sites without an underlying dataset behind them, and repeating an unsourced figure in a negotiation helps nobody. Ask candidates what they have been granted elsewhere and price against your own cap table.

An investing director buys shares on the same terms as any other investor, at a price both sides agree, alongside the appointment. That does not reduce the fee automatically and it should not be treated as payment in kind. What it changes is alignment: the person scrutinising your forecasts has their own money behind the answer.

Across our network the investment sits between £25,000 and £1m, set by the director rather than the company. It also changes the conversation about duties. A director who holds shares still owes the section 172 duty to promote the success of the company for the benefit of members as a whole, and a conflict between their interest as a shareholder and their duty as a director has to be managed at the board table, not assumed away.

For a first independent appointment at seed or Series A, budget a fee in the private company range above, a defined day count, directors' and officers' cover, and the search cost. Then decide whether you want equity in the package and whether you want the person to invest.

If you would rather see where your board stands before you spend anything, the free Board Readiness Score scores composition, independence, cadence and information, alignment and round readiness in twelve questions.