The worst part of salary benchmarking is that most data is either years out of date or so Americanised it might as well be in dollars. If you're trying to work out what a CTO should earn in the UK right now, you need numbers that reflect what's actually happening in London, Manchester, Edinburgh and everywhere in between.
Here's what the market looked like at the end of 2025.
Base salary ranges by company stage
A CTO at a pre-seed startup with three engineers earns very differently to one running a 150-person engineering organisation at a scale-up. The title is the same. The job is not.
Early stage startups, typically pre-Series A, are offering £80k to £120k base. Equity matters more here than cash, and if it doesn't, something's wrong with the offer. These roles are often part-time or fractional until product-market fit arrives.
Series A and B companies with genuine traction sit in the £120k to £180k range. Equity packages drop as a percentage but the absolute value should be material. You're building the team and the technical foundation that has to scale.
Growth stage and later, particularly post-Series C or profitable scale-ups, you're looking at £150k to £250k base. Some London fintech and enterprise SaaS CTOs push past £300k once you add bonus and equity refresh grants. That's not typical, but it's not fantasy either.
Traditional corporates and large consultancies often sit between £140k and £220k for the CTO or equivalent title. Less equity upside, more predictable total comp, better pension contributions. Different trade-offs entirely.
Location still matters, but less than it did
London pays more. That's still true. But the gap has narrowed considerably since full remote work became normal. A CTO role in Bristol or Leeds that would have been £130k in 2019 is now closer to £150k if the company is venture-backed and competing in a national or international talent market.
Regional differences matter most in traditional industries where the role is site-based and the company isn't competing with tech-first businesses for talent. A manufacturing CTO in the Midlands will see different numbers than a SaaS CTO working remotely from the same town.
Remote-first companies with international teams sometimes benchmark against European or US rates, which can lift UK salaries at the top end. But that's inconsistent. You can't rely on it.
What actually affects your number
Team size is the strongest single predictor. Are you managing five people or fifty? A CTO with genuine hiring, firing and budget authority over a 40-person engineering team should be earning materially more than someone with a CTO title and three reports.
Revenue and funding matter, but not in the way founders think. A profitable £20m ARR business can pay more reliably than a loss-making £5m ARR company that just raised a Series B. Cash in the bank from a funding round creates salary headroom. Actual revenue creates salary certainty.
Your track record changes the floor and ceiling. If you've scaled a team from 10 to 100 before, or taken a product from concept to exit, you command a premium. First-time CTOs, even excellent ones, start lower and earn their way up.
Technical depth versus strategic breadth is the trade-off most companies get wrong. A hands-on CTO who still ships code regularly will often earn less than one focused entirely on strategy, architecture and people. That doesn't mean it's better work or a better role. Just different market rates.
Equity is half the conversation
A £140k salary with 2% equity at a Series A company is a completely different offer than £140k with 0.25% at Series C. You cannot evaluate a CTO package without doing the equity maths properly.
Early stage equity should be between 1% and 4% depending on how early you join and what you're walking into. Series A and beyond, expect 0.5% to 1.5% for a new CTO hire. Anything below 0.25% at a startup is decorative, not meaningful.
Vesting schedules and cliffs matter as much as the headline percentage. Four-year vests with a one-year cliff are standard. Anything more founder-friendly than that should come with more equity or higher cash to compensate.
What benchmarking actually tells you
Salary data gives you a range, not an answer. The range for a UK CTO in 2025 runs from £90k at a tiny early-stage startup to £300k+ at a well-funded scale-up or large corporate. Most sit between £130k and £200k.
Where you land in that range depends on the company's funding, your experience, the team size, and how desperate they are to hire. Negotiating power comes from options, and options come from knowing what the market actually pays.
The best benchmark is recent offers from similar companies at a similar stage. Everything else is context.
If you want to see where your current or target salary sits against the broader UK market, the Salary Benchmark tool will give you a data-backed comparison without the usual recruitment fluff.
