Inside the 2025 NFP Salary Survey: Culture, Boards, and the Rise of AI

The biggest independent salary survey available for the sector, the 2025 report includes a wide exploration of salaries for a range of sub-sectors and roles at varying levels, as well as board remuneration and composition.

However, the Salary Survey also moves beyond this, supplementing this crucial salary benchmarking with insights into workplace culture and tools being used across the sector. 

Working arrangements and culture

In workplace culture, hybrid working arrangements are seen as a significant way to attract talent and is quickly becoming the norm in workplaces across the country. Indeed, in this year’s federal election, Peter Dutton’s pledge that public servants would be forced to return to work on site went down like a lead balloon and forced a rare u-turn and mea culpa from the former Liberal leader. Has there been a contraction, maintenance or increase in the number of workplaces offering this possibility?  We examine the responses in this year’s results. 

Board composition and remuneration

Surprising shifts in board composition are also highlighted, as is the sometimes-sticky topic of non-executive remuneration, compensation or benefits. Almost three-quarters of organisations reported mid-sized boards of 6-10 people. More than half of the boards represented in the research had a less than even gender split, representing a decline from last year’s survey.

The other controversial topic covered is time commitment, meaning the amount of time spent attending board meetings or working on board matters. The average on this metric edged higher from last year, with the average time spent each month rising almost an hour and a half.

While this isn’t surprising given persistent challenges in the sector around funding availability, political shifts and global uncertainty, it’s pivotal intelligence for all organisations with board oversight, and setting board performance expectations both in the recruitment and ongoing KPI settings. 

Generative AI

It seems the word on everyone’s lips right now is “artificial intelligence”, and no-where is this more the case than in the NFP/for-purpose space. 

Amid tight budgets and constrained resourcing, the sector is looking to AI to assist in filling gaps and automating tasks where it is appropriate and safe to do so. 

Respondents in this year’s survey gave us insight into which tools they are using and even more significantly, for what purpose. The results give insight into where tasks can be automated and have the potential to give executive-level management constructive ideas for the potential to deploy this sort of technology in the future. Many are also indicating that AI workplace policies are a high priority for development.