School business manager (SBM) pay

There's no national pay scale for SBMs. Make sure you know who's responsible for setting their pay in your school, find information about average salaries, and see what you should consider when setting a salary.

Last reviewed on 19 December 2024
School types: AllSchool phases: AllRef: 4888
Contents
  1. Pay is determined locally
  2. Average salaries
  3. Setting a salary
  4. Pay for SBMs on the SLT

Pay is determined locally

There's no national pay scale for support staff, including SBMs. Instead, it’s the employer’s responsibility to agree pay and progression. Your employer will depend on your school type.

  • Community or voluntary-controlled (VC) school – the local authority (LA) is the legal employer, so pay and conditions for SBMs are based on the LA's scale of pay grades. These are usually based on National Joint Council (NJC) pay scales.
  • Foundation or voluntary-aided (VA) school – your governing board is responsible for determining the pay and conditions for SBMs 
  • Academy – your trust can set its own pay and conditions, but staff whose employment transferred to the academy at the point of conversion retain their existing pay and conditions (unless the trust renegotiated these after the transfer)

Further details of this can be found in section 7.19.1 of the Maintained schools governance guide and section 7.12.2 of the Academy trust governance guide.

The National Careers Service says the average salary for SBMs is