Director Pay Intelligence
See median and top-quartile director emoluments and dividends paid for any UK industry sector and company size band — sourced from iXBRL-parsed accounts filed at Companies House.
How the Director Pay Intelligence tool works
What it shows
Select any UK industry sector and a company size band to see median and top-quartile director emoluments, highest paid director pay, dividend distributions, and total staff wage costs — benchmarked across thousands of real Companies House filings.
Salary vs dividends
Many UK owner-directors pay themselves a small salary and top up income with dividends to minimise National Insurance and income tax. This tool shows both emoluments (salary-type pay) and dividends paid so you can benchmark total director take-home across sectors.
Data source
All figures are extracted from iXBRL-formatted annual accounts submitted to Companies House. Director emoluments, highest paid director, dividends, and staff costs are taken directly from company financial statements for the most recent complete year.
Size bands
- Micro — 1–9 employees
- Small — 10–49 employees
- Medium — 50–249 employees
- Large — 250+ employees
Dividends vs salary: the tax efficiency picture
Dividends are paid from post-tax profits and taxed at lower rates than PAYE salary — there is no National Insurance on either side. Basic-rate taxpayers pay just 8.75% on dividends vs 20% income tax plus 8%+ NI on salary. Many small company directors therefore take a salary at the NI threshold (around £12,570) and draw the rest as dividends.
Use this tool to see what directors in your sector actually report — and how much of their remuneration comes via dividends vs emoluments.