This guidance supports trust boards in following a transparent, proportionate, and defensible process to set executive pay, with a robust evidence-based approach.
This revised guidance includes CST's principles on setting pay, previously published separately, a new section on handling appeals, and new regulatory requirements from 2025. It covers pay for chief executives and equivalent roles, and other senior roles such as chief finance officer and chief operating officer. In some cases it may be relevant to headteacher roles, depending on the structure of the trust.
It should be read together with the Academy trust handbook and Academy accounts direction provisions on executive pay, and the Academy Trust Governance Code.
Guidance
Leadership
Pay and conditions
People and culture
Strategic governance
Workforce resilience and wellbeing
