Cabinet Secretary Salaries ...
... continue to decline in real terms.
I have updated my chart summarising the earnings of Cabinet Secretaries to include the likely £200k salary of Simon Case’ soon to be appointed successor.
The discontinuity, when Jeremy Heywood succeeded Gus O’Donnell in 2011, was at least in part due to the decision that Sir Jeremy would not concurrently hold the roles of Head of the Home Civil Service and Permanent Secretary of the Cabinet Office as was previously the case. These positions instead went to Sir Bob Kerslake and Ian Watmore respectively. Three salaries therefore replaced one, with consequences for the Cabinet Secretary.
Sir Jeremy (as he then was) succeeded Bob Kerslake (so two of the three roles were re-combined) when the latter retired a couple of years later, but Sir Jeremy’s salary was not increased as a result.
Detail
Wikipedia’s list of Cabinet Secretaries is here.
The salary data from 2010-2022 in the above charts come from the annual Cabinet Office reports of senior officials 'high earners' salaries. I sampled every second year through to 2022 and used the maximum figure in the reported pay ranges. (The ranges never exceeded £5k.) The salaries were reported as of September each year so my next data point is estimated as of September 2025 when the salary will presumably still be around £200k. Before that …
I have not been able to identify any salary data for Richard Wilson or his predecessors. Such information would be very welcome - by email, please.
Richard Wilson’s successor, Andrew Turnbull was appointed within very wide salary band (£145-245k). I have assumed that he was paid £210k (£372k in 2025 prices).
Gus O’Donnell was then appointed within a salary band of up to £264k, and was actually paid £235-240k in 2010.
Jeremy Heywood’s starting salary was much lower (£190-195k) and the equivalent figure for Simon Case was £200-205k.
Permanent Secretary of the Cabinet Office, Ian Watmore, was quickly succeeded by John Manzoni who also became Chief Executive of the Civil Service, reporting to the Cabinet Secretary. Mr Manzoni was in turn succeeded by Alex Chisholm and the Chief Exec post renamed Chief Operating Officer. Cat Little succeeded Alex Chisholm in 2024.
I have estimated CPIH as at Sept 2025 by assuming that it will be 2.5% higher than the September 2024.