The UK uni vice-chancellors who got the biggest bonuses in 2025 on top of the six-figure pay

Loads of UK unis are really struggling with money right now, but their vice-chancellors don’t seem to have this problem. The bosses of several UK unis received huge bonuses in 2025.

This is on top of the huge salaries vice-chancellors receive, which is usually well above £100,000 (and can be as much as £427,000 if you happen to run the University of Oxford). Many also get to live rent-free in swanky houses that are owned and maintained by the unis.

The UK uni vice-chancellor who got the highest bonus in 2025 (that we know of so far) is Geoff Smith at Regent’s University London. This is a private university, which is why you might not have heard of it (and probably why the vie-chancellor’s bonus is so wildly high).

Regent’s University London, which funnily enough backs onto Regent’s Park in London
(Credit: Mike Peel)

Edward Peck left his role as the vice-chancellor of Nottingham Trent University this summer so he could be the head of the Office for Students. He got a huge bonus of £66,000. This might come as a surprise, considering the uni’s income fell by £35.8 million this year, and it now has a deficit of £2 million. It appears that management were impressed with how the vice-chancellor dealt with it all?

Universities across the UK are in the midst of publishing their accounts from the 2024/2025 academic year, so we can take a nosy look at exactly how much money the unis make, what they spend it on, and how broke they are. Times Higher Education investigated what benefits the vice-chancellors got. Some of these bonus payments are really jarring.

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So, here are the UK unis that have dished out massive bonuses to their vice-chancellors in 2025, ranked by hugeness:

8. Nishan Canagarajah at the University of Leicester – £5,000

7. Jane Harrington at the University of Greenwich – £6,000

6. Larry Kramer at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) – £30,000 (called an annual review contribution)

LSE is a Russell Group uni, fyi
(Credit: Umezo KAMATA)

5. Paul Croney at Teesside University – £43,000

4. Manchester Metropolitan University – £46,000

3. Amanda Broderick – University of East London – £50,000

2. Edward Peck at Nottingham Trent University – £66,000

1. Geoff Smith at Regent’s University London – £145,000

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