Accountancy Capital provides Non-Executive Director (NED) recruitment for businesses seeking to appoint qualified, experienced NEDs to their boards — at owner-managed, PE-backed, AIM-listed and growing businesses at the point where independent governance oversight, specific board-level expertise or the credibility that an experienced NED provides becomes a strategic priority. We place NEDs with specific finance, commercial, digital, sector and governance expertise.
The most searched NED topic in our audience is Non-Executive Director salary — what NEDs are paid and what factors determine the compensation. This guide answers that question directly, then covers what NEDs do, the time commitment involved, how to find NED appointments and how Accountancy Capital’s NED recruitment service works.
Non-Executive Director Salary — 2026
NED compensation varies widely by business type, ownership structure and the specific contribution the NED is expected to make. The ranges below reflect current 2026 market data across the owner-managed, PE-backed and AIM-listed segments that represent the majority of NED appointments at businesses of £10m–£300m revenue.
| Business Type and Size | NED Annual Fee | Audit Committee Chair Premium |
|---|---|---|
| Owner-managed, £5m–£20m | £15k–£35k | N/A — rarely formal committee |
| Owner-managed, £20m–£60m | £28k–£52k | £5k–£12k additional |
| PE-backed, £10m–£50m | £35k–£65k | £8k–£18k additional |
| PE-backed, £50m–£150m | £52k–£85k | £10k–£22k additional |
| AIM-listed, smaller cap | £45k–£80k | £10k–£20k additional |
| AIM-listed, mid cap | £65k–£110k | £15k–£30k additional |
NED fees at PE-backed businesses are typically the most commercially competitive in the mid-market, because PE funds pay for NED expertise that directly accelerates their investment thesis: the digital transformation NED who has done it before; the sector specialist who brings relationships that open new commercial channels; the governance NED with Audit Committee experience who gives the PE fund confidence that the financial oversight is credible. NED fees at listed companies are set by the Remuneration Committee and disclosed in the annual report. See the NED Recruitment page for the full service.
What Does a Non-Executive Director Do?
Board governance. The NED attends the board — typically four to six times per year for owner-managed businesses; eight to twelve times for PE-backed and listed businesses — and participates in the governance of the business: challenging management on strategy, risk and financial performance, and ensuring that the board’s decisions are made with appropriate process and rigour.
Financial oversight. Many NEDs at businesses of £20m+ serve on or chair the Audit Committee — the board sub-committee responsible for overseeing the integrity of the financial reporting, the external audit relationship and the internal controls framework. The Audit Committee Chair with qualified accountancy credentials is one of the most sought NED profiles in the PE-backed and listed market.
Strategic challenge. The NED provides the independent challenge to management’s strategic proposals that executive directors, who have been close to the strategy, cannot always provide. The experienced NED who has seen the same strategic question in a different context — the expansion into a new market, the acquisition thesis, the platform scalability question — adds direct commercial value to the strategy debate.
Network and introductions. Senior NEDs with deep sector relationships provide introductions to customers, partners, advisers and investors that management teams cannot access independently. This introductory function is most valued at growth-stage and PE-backed businesses where the network premium of the right NED is directly measurable in commercial outcome.
Management support and mentoring. Many NEDs — particularly at owner-managed and founder-led businesses — provide informal mentoring to the CEO and management team, drawing on their own executive career experience to support management decisions and to provide the sounding board that founder CEOs often lack within the business.
NED Time Commitment
| Business Type | Board Meetings/Year | Committee Work | Total Typical Days/Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Owner-managed, growing | 4–6 | Minimal | 8–15 days |
| PE-backed, active portfolio | 8–12 | Audit Committee, Risk Committee | 18–28 days |
| AIM-listed | 10–14 | Audit Committee, Rem Committee | 25–40 days |
The most common underestimation in NED appointments is the time between board meetings — the paper review, the calls with management, the ad hoc advice and the committee work that adds two to four days to the formal board meeting cycle in most active engagements. NEDs should build for this in their portfolio planning and should be honest with prospective appointing businesses about their current portfolio commitments before accepting an additional appointment.
Brief a NED Search
Accountancy Capital places Non-Executive Directors at growing, PE-backed and listed businesses. Brief a NED search or register for NED appointments.
Tell Us About Your Hire → 0204 553 8893
How to Become a Non-Executive Director
The most consistent predictor of success in securing a first NED appointment is a specific board-level skill that the appointing business genuinely needs — not general management experience, but a specific expertise that fills a gap in the current board capability: digital transformation experience, financial services regulatory knowledge, international market entry track record, FCA-regulated governance experience, specific sector expertise or Audit Committee-qualified financial reporting credentials.
The ACA or ACCA-qualified Finance Director or CFO with listed company or PE-backed governance experience is one of the most consistently sought NED profiles in the mid-market, because every board of a PE-backed or listed business above £20m revenue needs an Audit Committee with at least one financially qualified member. The FD or CFO who positions themselves specifically as an Audit Committee NED — emphasising their financial reporting, internal controls and external auditor management experience — has a more specific and more immediately valuable NED proposition than the FD who positions themselves as a general management NED.
Practical steps to the first NED appointment: register with specialist NED recruitment businesses including Accountancy Capital’s NED recruitment service and NED Capital (nedcapital.co.uk), which focuses exclusively on NED and governance appointments; build a specific NED proposition document that describes the board-level skills you offer and the type of business you are best suited to; and target NED roles in sectors and business contexts where your executive experience is most directly relevant.
A Note from Our Founder — Adrian Lawrence FCA
The NED market at £35,000–£85,000 per year has become significantly more competitive and better-structured over the past five years, driven by PE funds’ increasing sophistication in using NEDs as active contributors to the investment thesis rather than as passive governance fixtures. The PE-backed NED at a buy-and-build platform who has done a buy-and-build before — who can introduce the acquisitions, challenge the integration planning and accelerate the operational improvements that the PE fund’s investment thesis depends on — is earning that fee from the portfolio company. The NED who is governance furniture is not.
Accountancy Capital places NEDs with specific commercial and governance expertise at owner-managed, PE-backed and listed businesses at board-level fees of £15,000–£110,000 per year. Call 0204 553 8893 to brief a NED search or to discuss NED appointment opportunities.
Adrian Lawrence FCA
Founder, Accountancy Capital — Qualified finance recruitment specialists, £50,000 and above. Adrian is a Fellow of the ICAEW — verify via ICAEW.
NED Salary: What Determines the Fee Level
NED fees are determined by four variables that interact to produce the specific fee for a specific appointment. Business size and complexity. A PE-backed business of £80m revenue with multiple entities and four board meetings per year pays more than an owner-managed business of £12m revenue with three board meetings per year. The additional governance complexity, the reporting depth and the management relationship at the larger business all justify the fee difference. NED seniority and track record. The NED with an established board-level track record — three to four previous NED appointments, including at listed companies or large PE-backed businesses — commands a higher fee than a first-time NED, because their board-level credibility and their governance experience provide more immediate value.
Specific expertise premium. The Audit Committee Chair with ACA qualification and listed company financial reporting experience commands a significant premium over the equivalent NED without the specific Audit Committee expertise. The digital transformation NED with a track record of completed platform transitions commands a premium over the NED with general management experience. Specific expertise that directly addresses the board’s current strategic gap is the most reliable fee premium. Time commitment. The NED role that involves twelve board meetings per year, plus two formal committee meetings and monthly calls with the CEO, is compensated at two to three times the fee of the equivalent business with four board meetings per year and no formal committee structure. The fee calculation should reflect the actual time commitment honestly — underpricing the time creates the NED disengagement that under-compensated NEDs consistently exhibit.
NED vs Executive Director: Key Distinction
The Non-Executive Director is not an employee of the business and does not have an executive management function within it. The NED is appointed to the board as an independent director — independent of management, independent of the major shareholders and independent of any commercial relationship with the business — to provide governance oversight, strategic challenge and specific expertise. This independence is the source of the NED’s value to the board: the NED who challenges a management proposal that every executive director supports, and who is right to challenge it, is performing the most important function their role provides. The NED who agrees with every management proposal provides the appearance of governance without the substance of it.
The Exec Capital platform (execcapital.co.uk) provides Exec Capital’s C-suite and board-level executive director search service. Accountancy Capital places finance-qualified NEDs and governance NEDs through our specialist NED recruitment service. Call 0204 553 8893 to discuss NED requirements or NED appointment opportunities.
NED Recruitment: How Accountancy Capital Works
Accountancy Capital places Non-Executive Directors through direct engagement with our senior finance and commercial network — identifying NEDs whose specific board-level skills match the gap the appointing business needs to fill — rather than through a generic board member directory. Every NED brief begins with a specific discussion about what the board currently has and what it is missing: the skills, the experience, the sector knowledge or the governance credential that the proposed NED needs to provide.
The NED search process typically runs eight to twelve weeks from brief to appointment for owner-managed and PE-backed searches. Listed company NED searches may take longer due to the formal nomination committee process and the independence requirements of the UK Corporate Governance Code.
Accountancy Capital’s NED practice is particularly active for Finance Director and CFO-background NEDs who bring Audit Committee capability alongside board-level financial leadership credibility. Call 0204 553 8893 to brief a NED search or to discuss NED appointment opportunities as a candidate. See also Register as a Candidate.
Related Pages and Resources
| NED Recruitment The Accountancy Capital NED recruitment service. | Finance Director to NED FD and CFO backgrounds for NED roles. → Finance Director Recruitment | PE-Backed Governance NED roles at PE-backed businesses. | Salary Benchmarks Finance and governance role salary data. |
NED Recruitment — 0204 553 8893
Accountancy Capital places Non-Executive Directors at owner-managed, PE-backed and listed businesses. Brief a NED search or register for NED appointments.