����Vlog

The gender pay gap among leaders of the biggest multi-academy trusts has widened sharply over the past three years, ����Vlog analysis reveals.

The median salary was £191,452 for male leaders, compared with £170,000 for female CEOs at the 100 trusts with the biggest number of schools.

This 11.2 per cent gap, equivalent to £21,452, is the highest for at least three years, up from £15,000 (8.3 per cent) in 2023-24 and £2,501 (1.6 per cent) the previous year.

The findings come amid wider concerns about women’s representation at the top of the sector, with female CEOs leading just over a quarter of the 100 biggest MATs.

There were 66 male CEOs leading the 100 largest trusts in England by number of schools, and women’s representation in that group has remained largely unchanged since 2022-23.

Louise Hatswell, pay specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “Without decisive action to review the gender pay gap, improve representation in leadership roles and mitigate some of the systemic barriers to flexible working, we risk it widening further.”

Performance-related pay in senior roles was one factor behind the pay gap, she said.

that the gender pay gap is higher in performance-related pay than base pay. While there is no single driver of this, women are less likely to push for pay progression in many cases, Ms Hatswell said. 

ASCL called for the replacement of performance-related pay with a “more supportive and developmental appraisal system which is unrelated to pay”.

The union also urged the government to do more to improve flexible-working opportunities, backed by sufficient funding.

Government ‘needs to take action’

Emma Balchin, chief executive of the National Governance Association, said the government needed to identify sector-wide trends and take action.

“Persistent gender pay gaps” have been a feature of the education system for many years, especially in senior leadership roles, she said, adding that all trusts should have mandatory training in unconscious bias and sexual harassment for those involved in recruitment.

Pointing out that women are more likely to have caring responsibilities, she also said that all trusts should have policies that support flexible working.

Ms Balchin highlighted that trust executives are an “isolated exception” in the education system in that their pay is set without reference to a national framework.

However, even with a national pay scale, there was still a 5 per cent gender pay gap between secondary school headteachers in 2025-26.

Men dominate highest-paid roles

Men continue to dominate the highest-paid MAT chief executive roles among the 100 biggest trusts.

Of this group, 30 male CEOs were paid at least £200,000 in 2024-25, but only nine female CEOs.

This equates to 46 per cent of the male leaders and 36 per cent of female leaders in the biggest 100 trusts.

Of the 20 highest-paid CEOs, 15 were men and five were women.

But the pay gap is not only explained by a small number of very high salaries at the top.

����Vlog has mostly used the median average for pay in this analysis to reduce the risk of outliers skewing the figures: the fact that this gap has widened suggests the gender pay gap is not down to a small number of very high salaries.

And even using the mean average, female CEOs were paid 9.4 per cent less than their male counterparts among the 100 largest trusts - a figure that has been broadly stable over three years. This suggests that, at best, progress has stalled.

One of the reasons behind the gender pay gap is that men are more likely to lead the largest MATs, where chief executive pay tends to be higher.

In 2024-25, male-led trusts in the group used for this analysis had an average of 14,315 pupils, compared with 10,755 in female-led trusts.

And men lead 38 of the trusts with more than 11,000 pupils, compared with seven women.

Carol Dewhurst, chief executive of Bradford Diocesan Academies Trust, said while it is encouraging to see women leading some of the country’s biggest trusts, the findings show “there is still much more work to be done”.

Organisations need to create inclusive cultures, clear development pathways and support strong networks to ensure that women can access the most senior leadership opportunities, she said.

Fair pay, inclusion and clear progression routes should remain a priority for both policy and practice, Ms Dewhurst added.

CEO salary per pupil

Female-led trusts had higher median CEO salaries per pupil, the ����Vlog analysis shows.

In 2024-25, the median CEO salary per pupil was £22 in female-led trusts, compared with £15 in male-led trusts.

This appears to reflect the fact that women were more likely to lead smaller trusts, where a CEO’s salary would be proportionally more per pupil.

In 2023-24, the median CEO salary per pupil was £19 for female-led trusts and £17 for male-led trusts. In the previous year, the median figure was £21 for female-led trusts and £16 for male-led trusts.

But some trust leaders warned that per-pupil comparisons can make smaller trusts appear disproportionately expensive.

Dr Nic Crossley, chief executive of Liberty Academy Trust, which runs three specialist schools for autistic children, said she has taken a “cautious approach” to executive pay because salaries at small trusts can attract scrutiny, but this does not reflect the complexity of the trust’s work.

Her salary was between £130,001 and £140,000 in 2024-25.

Liberty had inherited a trust under a notice to improve and ran “highly complex specialist provision”, she said, but still received a letter from the Department for Education suggesting that its central team costs were too high, despite no one in her executive team being paid more than a principal.

“The benchmarking simply doesn’t account for context and complexity, yet the Academy Trust Handbook is clear that it should,” Dr Crossley said.

She added that her salary is “well below the median” for a CEO in her position, and she is concerned about retaining senior staff whose work has driven rapid improvement in schools. Some of these staff are now earning less than they did as headteachers.

Getting more women into leadership

Keziah Featherstone, executive headteacher of The Mercian Trust and co-founder of WomenEd, said there is a risk that succession planning within trusts could reproduce existing leadership patterns.

Many trusts are developing future leaders internally, she said, but this could lead to a “homogeneous group” if existing senior leaders select people who “look, sound and think” like them.

Ms Featherstone called for statutory training for trustees and governors on equity and representation, as well as more funded development opportunities for women in executive leadership.

She said CEO leadership development programmes could be “extremely expensive”, creating barriers for some aspiring leaders.

Emma Wigmore, chief executive of Vine Schools Trust, said talented women could “self-select out” of leadership pathways because they are less likely to apply for senior roles until they feel “fully prepared”.

Leadership pipelines need to be designed more intentionally through development programmes, coaching, mentoring and the active identification of future leaders, she said.

Ms Wigmore added: “The issue is certainly not a lack of talent. It is ensuring that pathways, structures and cultures enable that talent to step forward.”