How the figures are calculated

How income is distributed

Every registered main charity is included, including those below £500,000 and those that reported no income. They are ordered by latest income. The top 1% is the largest 1% of that list. The share is their income divided by the income of the whole list. The next bands are the rest of the top 10%, the rest of the top half, and the bottom half.

What “pence in the pound” means

For each charity we take the latest Annual Return Part B filed with the Charity Commission for England and Wales, and calculate:

charitable expenditure ÷ total expenditure × 100

That is how many pence of every pound spent were classified as charitable activities — grants, services, and other work that directly furthers the objects of the charity.

Who is on the list

Only charities with income of £500,000 or more are asked to split spending between charitable activities, raising funds, and other. There are about 170,000 registered charities in England and Wales; this ranking covers the ones that file that split and are still registered. Search covers every registered main charity. Those below £500,000 income have no spending split on this site — a match links to the official Commission record instead. The total sector income figure on the rankings page is the latest reported income of every registered main charity, including those below the £500,000 threshold.

That income is also shown against UK industry totals from the Office for National Statistics. Those industry figures are 2024 gross value added for the whole United Kingdom — the value of output minus the cost of inputs. Charity income is closer to turnover than to value added, covers England and Wales only, and includes grants and fees that may also appear in public-sector accounts. The comparison is a scale check, not a like-for-like national-accounts line.

The income pie uses the Commission’s own analysis of annual returns for financial years ending in 2024, when total gross income was £101.87 billion. The five slices are the standard account headings and they add up. Donations are not published as public, corporate and trust gifts. Government grants and contracts (£17.71 billion) are already inside those headings, mostly as fees and contracts under charitable activities. The £107.9 billion pill is a later extract of every charity’s latest income, so the two totals will not match.

The spending pie uses the same analysis. Charities with income over £500,000 — about 92% of sector expenditure — report three headings that add up: charitable activities (£81.28 billion), raising funds (£7.9 billion) and other (£3.3 billion). Grants those charities award (£17.84 billion) are already inside charitable activities. Smaller charities do not file the split, so they are not in the pie.

Scotland and Northern Ireland keep separate registers and do not publish the same Part B breakdown, so they cannot be ranked on the same metric.

Government funding

The annual return asks whether a charity receives money from government, and if so how much as grants and how much as contracts. The sector total adds those two figures on each charity’s latest return. It is only what was reported — charities that left the question blank are not estimated. It is not the same as grants the charity itself gives out.

government grants + government contracts

Most government funding ranks that amount. Government share is the same amount divided by the charity’s latest income. Many charities are entirely funded this way, so they sit at 100%; those ties are broken by the amount. A share above 100% usually means the income figure and the return do not cover the same year.

Reserves

Only charities with income over £500,000 are asked for a funds breakdown. Total reserves are the three fund balances added together: endowment funds (the capital the charity has to keep), restricted funds, and unrestricted funds. That sum is the same figure as net assets on the same return. The asset total is not added on top, because those funds are the assets. Unrestricted reserves are the unrestricted line only — money that is not locked to a donor’s purpose and is not held as endowment.

total funds ÷ that year’s income

The percentage on each card is that total divided by the income on the same returns. Reserves are a stock of money and income is one year, so the share is often more than 100%. It is not a share of the whole register, because smaller charities are not asked. Tapping a card ranks charities by that figure.

Governance as a share of income

The same Part B return also reports expenditure on governance — the cost of running the charity as an organisation rather than delivering services or raising funds. That usually covers audit or independent examination, legal advice for trustees, trustee meetings, and other constitutional and statutory costs.

expenditure on governance ÷ total income × 100

Unlike pence in the pound, this is spend against income, not a split of expenditure. A charity can spend more on governance in a year than it took in — for example by drawing on reserves — so the share can exceed 100%. A reported 0% usually means those costs were allocated into other headings (often support costs inside charitable activities), not that there were no trustees or no audit.

Use the sort options least on governance and most on governance to rank the same filers. Charities classify these costs differently, so treat extremes as a prompt to read the Commission record, not as a verdict.

Fundraising as a share of income

The same Part B return reports expenditure on raising funds — the cost of generating income, not of delivering the cause. Under the Charities SORP that heading typically covers donor appeals and fundraising staff, charity shops and trading, lotteries, and investment management. It is the complement, in accounting terms, of charitable activities — not a judgement that those costs were wasted.

expenditure on raising funds ÷ total income × 100

Unlike pence in the pound, this is spend against income, not a split of expenditure. A charity can spend more on raising funds in a year than it took in — a capital campaign, a new shop estate, or a drop in donations — so the share can exceed 100%. A reported 0% usually means the charity did not run public fundraising, typical of grant-makers and some endowed foundations, not that income arrived for free.

Use the sort options most on fundraising and least on fundraising to rank the same filers. This is different from the type filter, which tags a charity as public fundraising when raising funds is at least 12% of expenditure. A charity can look expensive against income even when most of its spend still goes to the cause. Household-name appeals often sit high on this metric because shops, donor acquisition, and trading are how the money is made.

Fundraising efficiency

That share-of-income figure still mixes in everything a charity took in — fees, grants under contract, and investment returns. Fundraising efficiency asks a narrower question: for every pound spent raising funds, how many pounds of funds raised came back.

(donations and legacies + trading income) ÷ (raising-funds spend − investment management)

Funds raised are the Part B lines for donations and legacies plus other trading activities — typically donor appeals, charity shops and fundraising events. Investment income, endowments, and income from charitable activities (fees and contracts) are left out. Fundraising spend is expenditure on raising funds minus investment management, so running an endowment does not count as a donor appeal.

The figure on the ranking is pounds delivered per pound spent. A charity that spent £1m raising funds and took in £5.4m of donations and trading income is shown as £5.40. Tap Fundraising efficiency on the rankings page to list every filer that reports both sides of that ratio, highest first, or choose Least £ delivered per £1 fundraising to start at the other end. A very high figure often means a large gift against a small fundraising line, not a replicable model. A figure below £1 means fundraising cost more than the donations and trading income it sits against in that year.

Highest paid employee

The Commission does not name a chief executive. Charities that file Part A of the annual return report how many staff sit in each £10,000 salary band above £60,000. We take the highest occupied band as the highest-paid employee — often the chief executive, but it can be a clinician, academic, fund manager, or other specialist. Bands are bands: we never see an exact salary.

highest occupied band above £60,000

Use highest paid employee (£) to rank by that band. Someone in the £150,001–£200,000 band is counted as £150,001 — a floor, not the midpoint. Over £500,000 is an open-ended band, the highest the Commission publishes, so those charities sit together at the top. Large universities, hospitals, and a handful of foundations dominate that list. Charities with top employees earning over £500,000 lists only that open band, largest income first. The Commission does not say how far above £500,000 the salary goes.

lower bound of that band ÷ total income × 100

Use highest paid employee (% of income) and lowest paid employee (% of income) to rank by that share. A large university with a high salary can still look small as a percentage; a smaller charity with one well-paid specialist can look large.

About 6,800 of the ranked charities disclose at least one employee above £60,000. The rest have no published band, so they sit at the end of these sorts rather than being treated as zero. Read the accounts before drawing conclusions — the figure is a disclosure band, not take-home pay, and it is not always the CEO.

Regulatory alert

Some charity records on the Commission register carry a banner marked Regulatory alert. That flag is attached when the Commission has published a report about that charity — most often a statement that an inquiry has been opened, an inquiry report, an official warning, or the appointment of an interim manager.

Use the Regulatory alert button on the rankings page to list the ranked filers whose records currently carry that flag, newest published report first. It is a listing, not a ranking: charities without an alert are hidden rather than sorted to the end. Other filters still apply.

An alert is not a finding of guilt, a measure of impact, or a reason on its own to give or withhold a donation. Some inquiries later close with no or limited criticism; some warnings are historic. The Commission also issues sector-wide “regulatory alerts” about risks such as fraud — those are not attached to individual records and are not in this list. Confirm the current status on the official record, and read the linked report, before you rely on it.

Why 100p is not always “best”

Grant-making foundations and universities often report close to 100p because they do not run public fundraising. Household-name fundraising charities look lower because charity shops, donor appeals, and investment management sit under “raising funds” — even when those activities are how the money is made.

Use the type filter: public fundraising for charities that spend at least 12% of expenditure raising funds, grant-makers where half or more of spend is grants to other institutions, and operating for the rest.

This is not impact

The figure is an accounting ratio, not a measure of effectiveness, need, or how well a pound is spent. Charities classify costs differently. Compare like with like, and read the Commission record before drawing conclusions.

Source: Charity Commission full register extract, 12 October 2026. See the full disclaimer: figures can be wrong, and this site is not advice.