Pay has grown at a faster rate for HR directors over the past year when compared with most other roles in HR, according to a new study.

Most HR directors have experienced a significant salary uptick, found Incomes Data Research, with their median salary rising by 20.9% from £111,982 in 2024 to £135,381 in 2025.

IDR’s research also found that pay for HR function heads has risen by 8.7%, with the median salary rising from £73,246 last year to £79,600 in 2025. By contrast the latest median pay rise for the whole economy, as observed by IDR, is 3.2%.

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Pay growth for less senior roles is much lower. Analysis of pay for HR advisers reveals a modest increase in the median salary of 1.5% (from £40,303 in 2024 to £40,902 in 2025). Meanwhile, pay for HR assistants has stayed broadly the same with the median at £25,000.

The significant increase in pay for HR directors has widened further the gap between pay for these most senior roles and that for roles on the next level down, typically HR function heads. In 2024, the gap between the median salaries for these roles was £38,736. But the latest figures show that this has broadened by 44% to £55,781.

Participants in the survey were also asked to indicate the state of recruitment and retention for HR roles.

In general, employers are not currently experiencing significant recruitment or retention challenges in this area.

“Where recruitment difficulties do exist, they are largely linked to senior roles with some 17% of respondents describing recruitment of HR directors as ‘very difficult’,” said Alyssa Withers, researcher at IDR.

However, retention of such roles is less of a problem, with nearly all (94%) of the survey sample indicating that retention of HR directors was “not a problem”.

The difficulties in recruitment may be partly why HR directors’ pay has seen such a jump over the past year, as recruiters may have had to increase pay to make the role more attractive to prospective employees.

However, there may be other contributing factors at play. Meanwhile, nine out of 10 respondents said that retention was “not a problem” for HR function head roles.

Overall, said IDR, the findings highlighted a trend of strong salary growth at the highest levels of the function, while pay for more junior roles had seen little change over the past year.

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