Governance Adviser, Beyond Governance
The National Careers Service lists company secretary pay from £28,000 at starter level to £95,000 for experienced professionals. That is a broad career guide, not a ceiling: specialist recruiter guides show higher ranges for some senior roles. Your realistic target depends on the responsibilities, employer and location, as well as your experience.
If you are considering paying for governance qualifications, start with the salary for a role you could plausibly move into. A group company secretary’s package tells you something about long-term possibilities, but little about the income you should budget for during your studies.
Salary sources checked on 8 October 2026. All figures are annual amounts in pounds sterling, before tax.
The table below shows the FTSE 250 commerce category in Barclay Simpson’s 2026 salary guide. This covers roles in companies in the FTSE 250 stock market index. The figures are base-salary benchmarks for that part of the market, excluding bonuses.
FTSE 250 commerce annual base salary benchmarks
Role and experience band in the guide | London | South East | Rest of UK* |
Board support, 0–1 year | £25,000–£40,000 | £25,000–£35,000 | £25,000–£35,000 |
Company secretarial assistant, 2–3 years | £40,000–£60,000 | £35,000–£55,000 | £35,000–£55,000 |
Assistant company secretary, 4–5 years | £60,000–£80,000 | £50,000–£75,000 | £50,000–£75,000 |
Senior company secretarial role, 6–7 years | £80,000–£100,000 | £70,000–£100,000 | £70,000–£100,000 |
Deputy company secretary, 8+ years | £100,000–£130,000 | £100,000–£120,000 | £110,000–£120,000 |
Company secretary | £140,000–£220,000 | £100,000–£180,000 | £100,000–£180,000 |
Group company secretary | £150,000–£240,000+ | £140,000–£200,000 | £140,000–£200,000 |
*Rest of UK reproduces the source’s “Regional” column, excluding London and the South East. Experience bands belong to the source and are not a guaranteed promotion timetable. Role labels have been expanded for clarity.
These figures describe roles in a particular listed-company segment. If you are targeting charities, smaller private businesses, public bodies or professional services firms, compare vacancies in those settings separately. Do not treat the table as a pay scale covering every governance job.
If you are looking for a trainee role, use the board support row as an initial reference and compare the actual duties in vacancies. The source calls this role board support; its range is not a UK-wide trainee salary average. Base your study budget on income you can reasonably expect during training.
A company secretarial assistant and an assistant company secretary can sit at different levels, as the table illustrates. Employers also organise their teams differently. Read what a vacancy expects you to own before deciding whether its salary is appropriate.
For example, distinguish between helping to prepare board papers under supervision and taking responsibility for a committee’s full meeting cycle. Look for the decisions you would make independently, the advice you would be expected to give and the experience required on day one.
When comparing two jobs, ask:
That gives you a more useful comparison than matching titles alone. It also helps you explain your existing experience in an application without overstating it.
Morgan McKinley’s 2026 permanent salary guide gives different London ranges for company secretaries within its three-to-five-year experience category: £85,000–£100,000 in commerce and industry, compared with £120,000–£150,000 in financial services. These are the guide’s own experience categories, not entry requirements.
The table labels these as annual rates without separately explaining bonus treatment. Use them as sector context, and confirm the base salary and benefits of an actual offer separately.
The lesson is to match the role and market before comparing the number. A broad London category and a particular listed-company segment are different comparison groups. The published pages do not give a sample size for each quoted salary band, so their ranges should be treated as benchmarks.
Use the National Careers Service range as an initial orientation, then narrow your research to comparable vacancies. Avoid combining several websites’ ranges into a new “UK average”: that would mix different roles and methods without producing a reliable statistic.
For a London offer, check the required office attendance and calculate your own travel and housing costs. A higher gross salary does not by itself tell you how much better off you would be.
A governance qualification can form part of your career plan, but the salary sources above do not establish a fixed pay increase caused by qualifying. They group people by role, experience or market. Budgeting for an automatic salary jump after your final exam would go beyond that evidence.
There is also a distinction between finishing your studies and becoming chartered. Successful completion of the Chartered Governance Qualifying Programme leads to Graduate membership of The Chartered Governance Institute UK & Ireland (CGIUKI), with the letters GradCG. Chartered status requires the relevant experience and successful progression to Associate or Fellow membership. GradCG alone does not confer the Chartered Secretary designation.
Relevant work experience gained before or during your studies can count towards chartered membership. Ask CGIUKI how its criteria apply to you, particularly if you are changing career.
For a practical decision, work through these steps:
If the recurring gap is technical knowledge or a specified qualification, study may address it. If the gap is several years of independent board support, you also need a plan to gain that experience. Campbell’s guide to chartered governance qualifications explains the routes and membership distinctions.
For someone funding their own studies, the practical value of a job extends beyond its headline salary. Keep cash pay, conditional benefits and development opportunities separate so that you can judge each clearly.
Hypothetical example: suppose you are choosing between two full-time governance support roles.
Illustrative offers, not observed vacancies
What you receive | Offer A | Offer B |
Annual gross base salary | £34,000 | £32,000 |
Approved study costs funded each year | None | Up to £2,000 |
Paid study leave each year | None | Five days |
Offer A pays £2,000 more in gross salary. Offer B could remove up to £2,000 of eligible study spending if you use the full allowance. That does not make the packages financially identical: study funding pays specified costs, and paid study leave gives you time rather than extra income.
Before deciding, ask whether support covers tuition, Institute registration and membership, exam entry and study materials. Also ask which other costs qualify, whether resits are covered, who approves the spending and whether you would have to repay support if you leave. Confirm that the paid leave can be used around your planned assessments.
Then compare pension terms, any bonus conditions, travel commitments and the work you will learn to do. Give particular attention to who will supervise you and whether the role offers the experience needed for your next step. Request the agreed terms in writing.
Check whether the quoted salary is the amount you would receive
For a part-time job, establish whether the advert quotes actual pay or a full-time equivalent (FTE). In a hypothetical example, £45,000 FTE at 0.6 of full-time hours means £27,000 annual gross pay: £45,000 × 0.6. Confirm the contracted hours and salary with the employer.
Keep interim day rates separate from annual employee salaries too. A useful comparison needs assumptions about paid working days, gaps between contracts and which costs and benefits each arrangement includes.
If you are changing career, compare your current package with roles that match the experience you can demonstrate. Relevant work in another field may help your application, but it does not establish which level an employer will offer you. Test that with real vacancies and recruitment conversations before committing to study costs or a pay cut.
If you already work in governance, identify what a better-paid role requires that you have not yet done. Use that gap to shape your development: ask for appropriate responsibility, keep evidence of the work you complete and discuss progression with your manager.
If you have not yet established which roles suit you, reviewing vacancies and speaking to people doing the work may be a better first step than buying tuition. When you are ready to study, explore Campbell’s College courses and confirm your entry route with CGIUKI before enrolling for tuition. Campbell’s provides tuition; the Institute determines its qualification and membership requirements.
Join students worldwide studying CGIUKI
qualifications with Campbell’s College.
Evon Chung is a Chartered Governance Fellow who has spent more than a decade bringing order to some of the most complex corporate structures in the world. As Manager of Global Corporate Services at Deel, she oversees the governance of around 350 entities across 125 jurisdictions, leading an international team of sixteen lawyers and governance professionals. Before Deel she held senior corporate secretarial roles at The Law Debenture Group and Eversheds Sutherland, running multi jurisdictional projects for FTSE 250 and Fortune 500 clients.
She has also sat on the other side of the exam paper. Some years ago, as a Subject Matter Expert for the Institute, she set and reviewed questions for the foundation level examination. She no longer does so, and her work with Campbell’s is purely as a tutor. The insight stays with her, and few tutors understand better what an examiner is looking for.
Evon came to governance by accident. An engineer by training, she joined a charity board of seventeen trustees, none of whom had a governance background, to help write the minutes. A few years later a law firm invited her into corporate secretarial work, and she never looked back. In a previous life she was a volunteer emergency ambulance technician, which taught her to stay calm under pressure, decide quickly on incomplete information, and know when to lead and when to hand over.
She teaches strategy as a form of storytelling. Her students arrive knowing the words and leave able to use them.
“Strategy is not about execution. It is about direction, intent, and asking the bigger questions.”
Steven Jones has spent his career making governance work where it matters most. As Deputy Director for Governance & Accountability at the Department of Health and Social Care, he leads the teams responsible for the governance of one of the UK’s largest government departments, supporting Ministers, the Departmental Board and senior leaders through periods of significant organisational change. His work spans corporate governance, board effectiveness, risk, accountability, public appointments and legal compliance, with responsibility for governance frameworks affecting millions of people.
Before joining DHSC, Steven led governance across some of government’s most complex programmes, including the UK’s border response during COVID-19, Brexit preparations at the Cabinet Office, and corporate governance for HM Revenue & Customs’ largest business group. Alongside his public service career, he founded Disability Connect Mentoring Scheme, advising organisations on disability inclusion and accessible leadership, and serves on Transport for London’s Independent Disability Advisory Group.
Steven teaches Company Law from the perspective of someone who uses it every day rather than someone who simply studies it. He believes the biggest misconception is that company law is about compliance alone. The rules matter, but the real question is why they exist, who they protect and what happens when the law reaches its limits. That is where judgement begins, and where governance professionals earn their value.
He describes governance simply: it is about who has power, how they are held to account, and what happens when they are not. Once students understand that, the legislation stops feeling like a collection of disconnected rules and starts making sense as part of a much bigger picture. His aim is for every student to leave not just knowing directors’ duties, but being able to explain them, apply them and use them confidently in practice.
Away from governance, Steven is a mentor, disability advocate and podcast host. He is also, somewhat unexpectedly, a partly qualified counsellor and the owner of a tortoise called Frank.
“People often think governance is just about board meetings. It is not. It is about who has power in an organisation, how they are held to account for using it, and what happens when they do not.”
Jamie Hunt is a barrister and a Fellow of the Chartered Governance Institute who has spent his career at the demanding edge of regulation, governance and risk. He is Director of Governance and Legal at the Royal Institute of British Architects, where he leads governance, legal, risk, data protection and procurement, advises the board, and serves as the organisation’s Designated Safeguarding Lead. He also advises Social Work England on complex fitness to practise matters. Before RIBA he was General Counsel at the Security Industry Authority and Head of Legal at the ACCA.
He earned his Chartered qualification through the Fast Track route and passed with distinction. He brings deep experience of risk to the module he teaches, having advised audit and risk committees and senior risk officers on operational, reputational and strategic risk across regulated organisations.
Jamie is also a natural teacher and examiner. He trains advocates for the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, lectures in advocacy at the University of Westminster, and serves as Lead Examiner for the Bar Standards Board professional ethics examination. He previously lectured in Corporate Governance and Boardroom Dynamics at Campbell’s College. Students gain an instructor who understands risk as a practitioner and knows exactly how to prepare a candidate for assessment.
John McLean is a chartered company secretary and a Fellow of the Chartered Governance Institute, currently Head of Governance and Company Secretary at Great Places Housing Group. He has built his career in complex regulated settings, advising chairs, boards and executives across corporate governance, risk, data protection, safeguarding and quality. Before housing he managed national programmes at NICE and led performance and compliance roles across local government.
He earned his Chartered qualification the recent and the hard way, completing the programme between 2023 and 2025 with distinctions in both Company Compliance and Administration and Boardroom Dynamics. He now tutors both at Campbell’s College.
John is a law graduate who fell for governance because, by his own admission, he is nosey. He likes to know how decisions really get made. He describes the work as less admin and more drama with a very good audit trail, full of personalities, politics with a small p, and the occasional plot twist. He teaches the human side of the boardroom as seriously as the rulebook, because he has watched perfectly compliant boards descend into chaos the moment nobody is willing to challenge anything.
There is one more thing. Out of university and in debt, John paid it down by winning more than fourteen thousand pounds across Weakest Link, Supermarket Sweep, Eggheads and The Chase. He has a gift for retaining information, much of it useless, all of it ready.
“If it is not written down properly, it did not happen. Or at least not in a way anyone can defend.”
Richard Poole is an accounting and finance specialist with more than twenty years spent teaching and marking the ICAEW, ACCA, ICAS and CIMA qualifications. As Managing Director of RJP Financial he lectures for providers worldwide, and he teaches financial reporting at Queen Mary University of London, where the PwC Flying Start programme he contributes to was named PQ Programme of the Year in 2025. He has helped write one of the most widely used taxation texts in higher education and built online courses now sold around the world.
He found financial accounting hard when he first learned it. That memory shapes how he teaches. He reassures students that there is no such thing as a silly question, and he uses plain explanations and real stories to make daunting ideas stick. He treats a set of accounts not as debits and credits, but as a story waiting to be understood.
His interest in governance came later, sharpened by hearing Erika Eliasson-Norris speak about her experience, which made him want to understand the field more deeply. Away from the classroom he is a lifelong sportsman who played semi professional football, and he draws his energy from team sport.
“Instead of seeing accounts as a series of debits and credits, think of them as a story waiting to be understood.”
Evon Chung is a Chartered Governance Fellow who has spent more than a decade bringing order to some of the most complex corporate structures in the world. As Manager of Global Corporate Services at Deel, she oversees the governance of around 350 entities across 125 jurisdictions, leading an international team of sixteen lawyers and governance professionals. Before Deel she held senior corporate secretarial roles at The Law Debenture Group and Eversheds Sutherland, running multi jurisdictional projects for FTSE 250 and Fortune 500 clients.
She has also sat on the other side of the exam paper. Some years ago, as a Subject Matter Expert for the Institute, she set and reviewed questions for the foundation level examination. She no longer does so, and her work with Campbell’s is purely as a tutor. The insight stays with her, and few tutors understand better what an examiner is looking for.
Evon came to governance by accident. An engineer by training, she joined a charity board of seventeen trustees, none of whom had a governance background, to help write the minutes. A few years later a law firm invited her into corporate secretarial work, and she never looked back. In a previous life she was a volunteer emergency ambulance technician, which taught her to stay calm under pressure, decide quickly on incomplete information, and know when to lead and when to hand over.
She teaches the Foundation Programme the way she would have wanted it taught to her — starting from first principles, building confidence early, and making sure no student feels out of their depth for long.
Marieclare Peter is a Chartered Governance Fellow who has built her career at the meeting point of governance, sustainability and financial services. She is Deputy Company Secretary of Monzo Europe, where she designs and runs governance frameworks for the board and its committees, and she advises senior leaders across banking on governance that keeps pace with a fast moving world. Her work spans board effectiveness reviews, transformation programmes and the thoughtful adoption of emerging technology, including AI.
She is twice a winner of the DMJ Governance Hot 100 as a Governance Trailblazer, and she won the ICSA Tom Morrison Essay Prize. Her MSc in Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability, completed with distinction, included research into the experience of company secretaries, a role she believes is still widely misunderstood. She is also an examiner for the Institute in another subject, so she knows the standard from the other side of the exam paper as well as the front.
Marieclare arrived in governance by a well told accident. She learned early that she would not make a great lawyer, spotted a trainee company secretary role, and has stayed for nearly a decade. The film The Big Short sharpened her sense of why governance matters and how badly its absence can end.
Away from the boardroom she runs on curiosity. She once ran a cake business, plays piano and sings, is learning Spanish, cooks in a kitchen for people who are homeless, and is devoted to her two cats.
“Anything that is governed requires governance. And governance directly correlates to outcomes.”
