EA Manager salary UK 2026: what 126 EA Managers told us, and what we’re doing about it

If you manage a team of Executive Assistants, there’s a fair chance you’re the only person in your business with that job, and that nobody has ever been able to tell you what it should pay. I’ve been recruiting EAs and the people who lead them for over a decade, and that conversation has sounded the same for the whole of that time. So this summer our sister company Lily Shippen ran the first UK salary survey to treat EA management as a job in its own right, rather than a footnote in an EA survey. Between 18 August and 28 September, 126 people who lead EA and PA teams answered it, most of them in London, Manchester and Leeds, and across financial services, professional services, technology, legal and other sectors. This is what they told us, and what Emily and I have decided to do about it.

What EA Managers actually earn

The median base salary across the UK is £65,000, and half of everyone who answered earns somewhere between £55,000 and £80,000. I’d be careful with the national figure, though, because it blends two very different markets. The London median is £74,000 and the median across Manchester, Leeds and the North is £55,000, which is a £19,000 gap for the same job.

What surprised me most is that your title matters more than the size of the team you run. People called EA Manager earn a median of £74,000, while people called Executive Assistant who manage a team earn £58,000. Hold the team size constant and it still holds: an EA Manager with one or two reports earns £65,000, and an Executive Assistant with the same one or two reports earns £56,500.

How you came into the job matters almost as much. People who were hired in as managers earn a median of £78,750, and people who grew into the role and were given a token rise when they did are on £60,000 today, for the same responsibilities.

This is a management job, paid as a support job

I don’t think anyone reading this needs convincing that leading a team of EAs is a management job, but the numbers put it beyond argument. Of the people who answered, 84% recruit, 80% run appraisals, 56% set the pay of the people who report to them, 63% also manage another function such as office management or events, and 44% report directly to the chief executive or founder.

In most cases all of that sits on top of the day job. 82% still support an executive personally, and 34% support two or more executives while managing the team. Those are the lowest paid of the managing groups, at a median of £65,000, against £74,000 for someone who manages the team and supports one executive. That is two jobs, and it’s usually paid as one.

What happened when the job grew

This is the part I find hardest to read. Of the people who took on management responsibility, 73% received either no pay rise or a token one, and 36% received nothing at all. More than half, 55%, kept the same job title. Among everyone with direct reports, 41% earn no more, or only marginally more, than the highest-paid person they manage, and 14% earn less.

Employers are already paying for it, just not in salary. 61% feel underpaid, and 27% feel significantly underpaid. Two thirds have never had their salary formally benchmarked, or don’t know whether it has been. 76% would move for more money in the next twelve months, and 27% are actively looking. Among the people who received no increase when they took on the team, 86% would move and 44% are looking now. In my experience the people most likely to leave are exactly the ones a business promoted without repricing, and this data says the same.

Why Emily and I think this isn’t good enough

We founded eavolve because we’ve seen this profession from opposite sides. Emily spent fifteen years as a senior Executive Assistant in FTSE 100 CEO offices and then managed a global team of sixty EAs, so she has carried every one of the responsibilities above and knows what they cost. I’ve sat across the table from the businesses setting the pay, and I’ll say in their defence that nobody is being unfair on purpose. Reward teams simply don’t have the numbers, so the salary gets set by feel, or by taking what the person earned as an EA and adding a little.

The data says that approach is wrong, and it has been wrong for a long time. If you’ve read much about eavolve, you’ll know we don’t publish a finding and leave it sitting there. When something in this profession isn’t good enough, we’d rather build the thing that changes it.

What we’re building for EA Leaders

On 30 September we brought together around twenty-two EA Managers and Heads of Business Support for a first conversation about what they actually need, and the themes were remarkably consistent. There is no dedicated leadership development for people who lead EA teams, nowhere to benchmark with peers, too few practical frameworks, too little meaningful data, and above all no community of people who genuinely understand the role.

So we’re moving forward with two things. The first is a private global membership community exclusively for EA Leaders, somewhere people who lead EA and PA populations can connect, learn, benchmark and support one another through the year. The second is an annual EA Leadership Event, and our early thinking is that the first one will take place in November next year in a central UK location so people can travel from across the country. It won’t be another general EA conference. It’s for the people leading executive support functions, and it will deal with the opportunities, the challenges and the realities of doing that job.

We’d rather build both with EA Leaders than for them, which is why we’re asking for your input now. If you lead an EA or PA team, register your interest below and we’ll involve you in the EA Manager calls as the plans take shape.

Register your interest in the EA Leaders community and event

Get the full report

The full EA Manager Salary Survey 2026 from our sister company Lily Shippen is free to download. It runs to forty pages and includes the benchmark card to send to your reward team, the London and Northern cuts, the data on bonus and equity, and a section written for anyone who sets EA Manager pay, with the four things to ask for and how to raise each one. If you’re the only EA Manager in your business, think of it as the colleague you haven’t had.

Download the EA Manager Salary Survey 2026

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