The job of a local government chief executive has never been a simple one. Over the past decade in particular, it has become one of the most demanding leadership roles in public life – combining responsibility for complex organisations, stewardship of public money and accountability for services that matter deeply to local communities.
At their best, chief executives have been pivotal figures in navigating crisis: steering councils through the pandemic, responding to civil disorder, managing major service failures and maintaining stability when political or financial pressures threaten to overwhelm organisations. In moments like these, strong executive leadership has been essential to protecting vulnerable residents and sustaining public confidence.
Yet the same role is also routinely pulled into the cross-currents of austerity, culture-war politics and public frustration about the condition of local services. Chief executives can quickly become the visible face of difficult decisions, a shorthand for institutional failure, or a lightning rod for national and local media outrage – sometimes within the very same news cycle that praises leadership elsewhere.
Yet for all this, much of the discussion about council chief executives remains at best unserious.
When debate about local government chief executives centres on whether they ‘deserve' a six-figure salary rather than whether the role can attract leaders capable of managing billion-pound budgets and holding statutory responsibility for vulnerable lives, we are asking the wrong questions.
Discourse is frequently focused on headline salary figures or simplified narratives that fail to engage with the reality of the role, the risks involved, or the consequences of getting leadership wrong.
Recent data reported by The MJ shows that the average advertised salary for council chief executives rose from £157,480 in 2021 to £179,426 in 2025, an increase of 14%.
Over the same period, prices rose by about 20%, meaning chief executives have experienced a real-terms pay reduction of roughly 6%-7%.
Set against the expanding scope, statutory responsibility, financial risk and public accountability now attached to the role, that finding should prompt a more thoughtful examination of how the sector defines, supports and treats its most senior leaders.
Local government chief executives now carry an ever-growing weight of responsibility. They are expected to deliver growth, navigate complex reform, manage profound financial pressure and, in some cases, prevent organisational failure altogether.
Their decisions shape local economies, community wellbeing and the infrastructure on which future prosperity depends. Yet the market signals around pay, role definition and support do not reflect the seriousness of that task.
Unlike other senior statutory roles, there is no consistent professional framework for chief executives. No professional qualifications are required. No mandatory development. No systematic capability assessment. Finance directors and monitoring officers are required to hold professional qualifications and maintain recognised standards of practice. Their roles sit within established regimes of development, assurance and intervention.
Leaders are not simply administrators or pen-pushers. The chief executive role may have evolved beyond recognition over recent years, but the sector has yet to grasp that the way it defines, governs and renews it has not kept pace with the demands now facing councils and their leaders.
The statutory framework that shapes senior leadership in local government was largely designed in the 1990s. The expectations and boundaries of the senior statutory roles – the so-called ‘golden triangle' – reflect a different operating context: clearer service lines, less complexity and far lower expectations of transformation, commercial acumen and system leadership. It is, plainly, a framework that no longer matches the organisations councils have become or the challenges they are now expected to manage.
Unlike other senior statutory roles, there is no consistent professional framework for chief executives. No professional qualifications are required. No mandatory development. No systematic capability assessment. Finance directors and monitoring officers are required to hold professional qualifications and maintain recognised standards of practice. Their roles sit within established regimes of development, assurance and intervention.
No equivalent structure exists for chief executives, despite the breadth and risk of the responsibility they carry.
In the private sector, this absence would be regarded as a governance weakness. Well-run boards subject themselves to regular reviews of collective competence and individual capability. Chairs commission board-effectiveness reviews and performance assessments because leadership effectiveness cannot be assumed to remain static as organisations and contexts change.
Local government has no consistent equivalent mechanism at the top of the organisation. Performance management of chief executives varies widely and is often shaped by political context, limiting opportunities for structured challenge, development or timely transition.
This creates risk, both for organisations and for individuals. We are already seeing the effects in the leadership market. Talent is drifting into the private sector, consultancy and the civil service, where roles are more clearly defined, capability is more systematically assessed and reward is aligned with responsibility.
This drift will only accelerate as new entities, including combined authorities, are created without addressing leadership capability and remuneration from the outset.
Investing in highly skilled, trusted chief executives is far more cost-effective than absorbing the financial, social and economic cost of organisational failure. If government – and local government – believes that reorganisation and combined authorities are central to driving growth, we must start by ensuring these organisations can attract and retain the calibre of leadership required to deliver it.
That requires a more honest examination of how the chief executive role is defined, governed and treated by the sector. Until we address that, debates about pay will continue to act as a proxy for deeper unresolved questions about leadership, risk and responsibility in local government.
Pam Parkes is president of the Public Services People Managers' Association
