How much money do C-Suite executives make?

Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

What do they do? The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) takes care of all the financial aspects of a company, including budgeting, cash flow planning, and risk management.

What do the highest-paid CFOs earn? The largest salary awarded to a UK CFO in 2023 was £575,000, says Page Executive’s 2023 salary survey. That’s around 16x the median UK salary.

What bonuses do CFOs get? Page Executive estimates that the top-earning CFOs receive a pay bonus of around 100%-200% of their base salary.

Is that what every CFO expects to earn? Probably not. While the highest-paid execs can enjoy six-figure salaries, data analysts Payscale, estimates that the average CFO salary in the UK is £98,985; roughly equivalent to the average take home salary for a CEO.

Do chief financial officers decide their own pay rise? Not exactly. But CFOs have certainly enjoyed a decent pay windfall in the last few years. Research by recruitment firm Robert Walters found that median CFO wages rose by £50,000 in 2024. That means in London, the chief financial capital in the UK, average earnings are now between £190,000 and £300,000.

Who is the highest-paid CFO? Patrick Pichette, who is CFO at Google parent company, Alphabet. He received a total compensation package of $16.5m (£12.7m) last year.

Chief Operating Officer (COO)

What do they do? The Chief Operating Officer (COO) is best thought of as the sidekick of the CEO. But while the chief executive takes care of ‘big picture’ thinking, COOs should be a little more down-to-earth and oversee the day-to-day operations at a business.

That sounds like a lot. Are COOs important? Definitely. COOs tend to be hired first, when the company is small. They will usually spin many plates including overseeing HR, legal, and finance functions, until the business scales up fast enough to hire a specialist CFO or CPO.

What do the highest-paid COOs earn? The Page Executive data estimates that, on average, top-earner COOs were paid £402,000 in 2023 (around 10x the median UK salary). They also took home bonuses worth between 25% to 150% of the COO’s base salary.

Would I earn that if I became a COO? Again, chief executive salary data is massively skewed by the fat cats. Sifted carried out a survey of COOs at startup companies in 2022. It discovered that the median wage for a seed-stage COO sits at £96,000 a year; still a very healthy amount for an executive to earn, but not too far off the median UK salary.

Who is the highest-paid COO? One of the highest-paid COOs in 2023 was Jennifer Wong, COO at Reddit. Papers filed by the social media platform when it went public in February reveal that Wong earned $92.5m in share options and bonuses.

Chief Operating Officer (COO)

What do they do? CCOs are the highest-ranking employee who manages all the commercial affairs of a business. In a nutshell, they are in charge of sales, client relationships, and — most importantly — business profitability.

What do the highest-paid CCOs earn? The highest base salary that a top-earning CCO was paid in 2023 was £350,000 according to the Page Executive data.

Do CCOs get commission? Naturally, as a sales-driven job, CCOs receive a substantial bonus. They can expect to earn a minimum bonus of 50% of their base salary to fatten the payslip even further. And, if they work in tech or financial services (where clients tend to have the most spending money) that bonus can apparently reach as high as 200%.

What about the average CCO? For CCOs that don’t work at major FTSE 100 firms, the estimated average salary for 2024 drops to a (still substantial) £119,456, says Payscale.

Who is one of the highest-earning CCOs? Microsoft CCO Judson Althoff was awarded $16.2m in total compensation for 2023. Althoff’s base salary was $960,000.

Chief People Officer (CPO)

What do they do? Chief People Officers (CPOs) or Chief Human Resource Officers (CHROs) take care of everything from recruitment to company culture. Post-COVID, they evolved from being largely operational into a key strategic player in the new world of work.

What do the highest-paid CPOs earn? Page Executive records that the highest-paid CPOs earned £311,000 in 2023, on average. That puts them close behind COOs and CFOs. In fact, the compensation gap between HR leaders and the other highest-paid executives at the most successful companies has halved from 60% to 30% between 1992 and 2022.

Why is CPO pay rising? People strategies have been thrown into chaos post-COVID, as flexible working rises and return to office mandates continue to divide teams. As a result, CPO responsibilities have become much more cross-functional in the past half a decade.

Fair enough. But should CPOs earn that much? Pay rises for CPOs can be a sore point for employees in today’s cost of living crisis. While many firms are making layoffs, the Page Executive data shows that the highest-paid CPOs took home bonuses of 75-100% in 2023.

Is that what every CPO can expect to earn? No, but they’re likely far from struggling. The average salary for a CPO in the UK is £103,263 in 2024, according to Payscale.

Who is one of the highest-earning CPOs? CPO salaries are less reported. But Senior Vice President for People at Apple, Deirdre O’Brien, earned a pay package of $27m in 2023.

Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)

What do they do? Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) are in charge of all marketing and advertising activities at a company. Because of this, they tend to be more public-facing than CPOs or CFOs, as they are responsible for telling the story of a brand.

What do the highest-paid CMOs earn? According to Page Executive, the biggest salary a CMO earned in 2023 was £400,000. As well, CMOs receive a bonus package of between 20-100%, though this will be tied to the department’s revenue and growth performance.

I’m guessing they don’t earn that much at every firm? Not unless it’s a FTSE 100 business. Payscale data shows that the average salary for a CMO in 2024 is £99,559 a year.

How is CMO pay changing? CMO haven’t seen the same record pay increases this year as other chief exec roles. Marketing and PR is often one of the first budgets to be cut in an economic downturn; one reason why it is also the C-Suite role with the shortest tenure.

Who is one of the highest-earning CMOs? Microsoft CMO Christopher Capossela raised eyebrows last year when he told staff to focus on improving the company’s stock price if they wanted a pay rise. Capossela cashed out $4.4m in stock options that year.

Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

What do they do? Also sometimes known as Chief Information Officers (CIOs), CTOs oversee the use of supporting technologies in companies. This could include cybersecurity and software, but also engineering and R&D. Some firms have both a CIO and a CTO.

Why have I not heard of CTOs before? CTOs were once kept hidden in the basements of IT firms. But with most businesses now reliant on technology, and with AI threatening to change the game even more, CTOs have become a vital player in the modern C-Suite cast.

What do the highest-paid CTOs earn? Page Executive reports that the largest salary a CTO earned in 2023 was £263,000, with a minimum bonus of 20%. The data also shows that this role is also the only exec position where pay is increasing in every sector.

How much do CTOs really earn? As with every exec role we’ve examined so far, the average CTO earns much less than the top earners. However, for a relatively new entrant to the boardroom, CTOs can still expect to be paid £100,017 a year, according to Payscale.

Who is one of the highest-earning CTOs? Salesforce co-founder and CTO Parker Harris took home $15.7 million as total compensation in 2023, a 12% jump year-on-year.

How much does a C-Suite cost in 2024?

At the top end of the pay scales, employers could spend just over £2.2m to hire all six key C-Suite roles in 2024. If they don’t want to bankrupt themselves by paying FTSE 100 wages, however, they can expect to pay a more acceptable £100,000 a year per chief executive.

Still, don’t let this figure scare you. These guesstimates are based on established businesses who likely have set up HR, legal, and marketing departments and need a full set of experts around the table. New founders can scale at their own pace.

Startups will also often pay themselves and their C-Suite in equity when they are just getting started, in order to attract talent without having to fork out all of their early-stage funding.

To check what size salary you can afford to take home as CEO, have a read of our guide on how to pay yourself as an employer.