Every September we go back through the offers we negotiated over the previous twelve months and ask one question: where did the money actually move? Not where candidates hoped it would, and not where last year’s guide said it should, but where signed contracts landed.
This year the answer is narrower than it has been for some time. Across the 61 senior offers we negotiated in London between September 2025 and August 2026, and the pay details of around 1,400 candidates we interviewed for those searches, median base rose 3.8%. That is down from 5.1% the year before. The average hides a wide spread: some roles barely moved, while a handful are still running well ahead of inflation.
Slower overall, sharper at the edges
Three things shaped the year.
Budgets were set early and held. Most of our clients fixed 2026 pay envelopes in the fourth quarter of 2025 and did not reopen them. Offers above band needed a board signature, and fewer were asked for.
Movers were paid, stayers were not. The median uplift on a move was 14%, against an internal pay rise of 3.1% for the same roles. That gap is the widest we have recorded.
Scarcity beat seniority. A Head of Financial Crime with live remediation experience was harder to find, and often better paid, than a Finance Director a level above.
We expect 2027 to look similar, with a little less movement at the top and a little more in the specialist middle.
Role by role: London base pay
The table shows median base salary for permanent hires in London, drawn from our offers and candidate data, with our forecast for offers made in 2027. Bonus, long-term incentives and equity are excluded here; they are covered in the full guide.
Role | 2026 median base | 2027 forecast | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
Chief Financial Officer (PE-backed) | £265,000 | £277,000 | +4.5% |
Finance Director (mid-cap) | £175,000 | £181,000 | +3.4% |
General Counsel | £235,000 | £242,000 | +3.0% |
Head of Financial Crime | £155,000 | £165,000 | +6.5% |
Chief Information Security Officer | £210,000 | £222,000 | +5.7% |
Head of Data Engineering | £148,000 | £156,000 | +5.4% |
Director of Nursing (private group) | £128,000 | £133,000 | +3.9% |
Head of Grid Connections | £138,000 | £147,000 | +6.5% |
Where the premium is still being paid
The roles at the top of the change column share a pattern. Each sits on a problem a board cannot postpone, and each draws on a small pool of people who have done the work under pressure.
Financial crime and security leaders are still being hired into remediation programmes with fixed deadlines. Candidates who have taken a firm through a skilled person review, or rebuilt a security function after an incident, know their value and rarely move for less than 15%.
Grid connections is the newer story. Developers and infrastructure funds with projects stuck in the connection queue are competing for the same few dozen people in the UK who understand both the engineering and the regulatory process. We placed four of these roles this year; the lowest offer was 11% above the candidate’s existing base.
Where pay is flattening
At the other end, General Counsel and mid-cap Finance Director pay is close to flat in real terms. Supply is healthy, many candidates are open to a move, and clients have become more willing to wait for the right person rather than pay to close quickly.
That does not mean these offers are easy. It means the negotiation has moved away from base and towards:
sign-on payments to cover forfeited bonus, now present in 38% of our London finance offers
shorter vesting periods on long-term incentives
hybrid working terms written into the contract rather than left to policy
Making an offer in 2027
For hiring managers, the practical advice is to price the role against the problem, not the title. A director-level hire who owns a regulatory deadline will cost more than the grade suggests, and an offer pitched at the band midpoint is likely to be turned down or countered.
For candidates, the reverse applies. If your role sits in the flatter part of the market, a strong offer will look more like 8 to 10% on base with a well-structured sign-on than the 20% jumps of three years ago. That is a fair outcome, not a poor one.
The full 2027 Salary Guide covers 120 roles across London, New York, Manchester and Boston, with bonus and equity ranges for each. If you are planning a senior hire, or weighing an offer, it is a better starting point than any single number in this note.
