UK charity sector statistics
The UK’s charity sector is large but unequal. The Charity Commission’s register listed 171,572 main charities in England and Wales as of July 2026, and around 128,000 of them — roughly three-quarters — have annual income under £100,000. A small number of large charities hold most of the sector’s £107bn income. This page collects the key sourced figures, with the methodology behind each one.
As of 11 May 2026, 128,384 of the 171,387 charities on the England and Wales register — about three-quarters — had an annual income under £100,000, yet together they accounted for only around 2% of the sector’s £107.0 billion income (Source: Charity Commission register, charities by income band, accessed 10 July 2026).
Key statistics at a glance
The headline figures below come from the Charity Commission’s register (updated daily), OSCR and CCNI. Each carries the date it was recorded; the register changes daily, so treat these as accurate to the stated date.
- 171,572 main registered charities in England and Wales (Charity Commission register, 9 July 2026).
- 128,384 charities — about three-quarters — have income under £100,000 (register, income band data, 11 May 2026).
- ~68,800 charities have income under £10,000 (register, income band data, 11 May 2026).
- £107.0 billion total gross income of registered charities in England and Wales (register, 11 May 2026).
- 1,697 charities with income over £10 million (about 1%) hold £71.6 billion — roughly two-thirds of sector income (register, 11 May 2026).
- 921,770 trustees and 6,528,563 volunteers in England and Wales (register, 9 July 2026).
- 24,946 charities in Scotland (OSCR, Sector Overview Report covering April–June 2026, published 6 July 2026) and 7,258 in Northern Ireland (CCNI, 31 July 2025).
How many charities are there?
As of July 2026, the Charity Commission’s register held 171,572 main charities in England and Wales, plus 13,788 linked charities, giving a total of 185,360 registered entities. Scotland’s regulator, OSCR, put the register at 24,946 charities in its Sector Overview Report covering April–June 2026, and Northern Ireland’s CCNI had 7,258 on its register in July 2025. These totals overlap slightly and should not simply be summed.
The three UK charity regulators count separately, and some charities that operate across borders — for example in both England and Scotland — appear on more than one register. There is no single, de-duplicated UK total, so the honest figure is to report each nation’s register with its date, as above.
How big are UK charities?
Most charities are small; most of the money sits with a few large ones. On the England and Wales register (May 2026), about three-quarters of charities had income under £100,000, and around 40% had income under £10,000. At the same time, the 1,697 charities with income over £10 million held about two-thirds of all sector income. The full distribution is below.
Chart 1 (for Ivan to build): a bar chart of the number of charities in each income band, showing the concentration of charities in the smallest bands. Free to reuse with attribution to CharityIQ and the Charity Commission register.
Chart 2 (for Ivan to build): a paired bar comparing “share of charities” against “share of income” by band, showing that the smallest three-quarters of charities hold about 2% of income while the largest 1% hold about 67%. This is the flagship inequality visual. Free to reuse with attribution.
Charities and income by band (England and Wales)
Charity Commission register, charities by income band, as of 11 May 2026:
| Income band | Charities | Share of charities | Total gross income | Share of income |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| £0 to £5k | 52,041 | 30.4% | £57.3m | 0.1% |
| £5k to £10k | 16,780 | 9.8% | £123.8m | 0.1% |
| £10k to £25k | 27,059 | 15.8% | £449.6m | 0.4% |
| £25k to £50k | 16,947 | 9.9% | £610.0m | 0.6% |
| £50k to £100k | 15,557 | 9.1% | £1,118.8m | 1.0% |
| £100k to £250k | 18,631 | 10.9% | £2,990.3m | 2.8% |
| £250k to £500k | 9,176 | 5.4% | £3,234.1m | 3.0% |
| £500k to £1m | 5,939 | 3.5% | £4,229.6m | 4.0% |
| £1m to £5m | 6,336 | 3.7% | £13,968.0m | 13.1% |
| £5m to £10m | 1,224 | 0.7% | £8,684.1m | 8.1% |
| Over £10m | 1,697 | 1.0% | £71,573.1m | 66.9% |
| Total | 171,387 | 100% | £107,038.6m | 100% |
Shares are calculated by CharityIQ from the register figures and may not sum to exactly 100% due to rounding. Charities with income under £100,000 (the first five bands) total 128,384 organisations and about £2.36 billion of income — 74.9% of charities and 2.2% of income.
Where does charities’ income come from?
For the charities that report detailed finances — those with income over £500,000 — the largest income source is charitable activities (such as fees and contracts for delivering services), followed by donations and legacies. The breakdown below covers this group, which holds most of the sector’s money; smaller charities are not required to report this detail.
Chart 3 (for Ivan to build): a breakdown of income by source for charities with income over £500,000. Free to reuse with attribution.
Income by source (charities with income over £500,000, England and Wales)
Charity Commission register, sector overview, as of 9 July 2026:
| Income source | Amount |
|---|---|
| Charitable activities | £52.25bn |
| Donations and legacies | £29.58bn |
| Other trading activities | £8.31bn |
| Investments | £5.77bn |
| Other | £2.81bn |
| Total income and endowments | £98.72bn |
This table covers only charities with income over £500,000, which is why the total is lower than the £107.0 billion all-charities figure above. It is the group the Commission requires to provide a full income breakdown.
The people behind the sector
Charities in England and Wales are governed by 921,770 trustees — the volunteers who are legally responsible for running them — and reported 6,528,563 volunteers and 1,721,265 employees in their annual returns, as of July 2026. The trustee and volunteer figures are drawn from the register; volunteer numbers in particular depend on what charities report, so they are best read as an indicative scale rather than a precise census.
Methodology and sources
This is where each figure comes from, so you can check and cite it with confidence.
- England and Wales counts, income, trustees and volunteers: the Charity Commission’s public register “sector data” pages (Sector overview; Charities by income band; Charities by income category), which are updated daily. Figures are quoted with the date shown on each page at the time of access (9 July 2026 for the sector overview; 11 May 2026 for the income band data; 26 June 2026 for the income category data). Because the register updates daily, exact figures will differ slightly by the date you check.
- Income band shares and the “under £100k” and “over £10m” aggregations are calculated by CharityIQ by summing the relevant register bands. The underlying band figures are the Commission’s; the percentages and groupings are ours, shown so you can reproduce them.
- Income by source covers only charities with income over £500,000, because the Commission collects that detailed breakdown only from those charities. It therefore totals less (£98.7bn) than the all-charities income figure (£107.0bn).
- Scotland: OSCR’s Sector Overview Report (covering April–June 2026, published 6 July 2026) put the Scottish Charity Register at 24,946 charities, up slightly on the previous period.
- Northern Ireland: CCNI’s register held 7,258 charities as of 31 July 2025. Checked again on 10 July 2026: no newer published total was found on charitycommissionni.org.uk, so this remains the latest confirmed figure (verified 10 Jul 2026 — refresh at publish in case a fresher figure has since been published).
- Caveat on a UK total: the three registers overlap for cross-border charities, so there is no clean de-duplicated UK figure; we report each nation separately.
- Register data is Crown copyright, available under the Open Government Licence v3.0. NCVO’s UK Civil Society Almanac uses a narrower “general charities” definition and different totals; where you need workforce and volunteering trends over time, the Almanac is the better source, and its next edition is due in 2026.
Cite this page
Free to reuse with attribution. Suggested citation:
CharityIQ (2026), “UK charity sector statistics”, drawing on Charity Commission for England and Wales register data (Open Government Licence v3.0), OSCR and CCNI. Available at: https://charityiq.co.uk/data/uk-charity-statistics/ (accessed [date]).
Changelog
- 10 July 2026: first published, using register data dated 9 July 2026 (sector overview), 11 May 2026 (income band) and 26 June 2026 (income category); OSCR 24,946 (Sector Overview Report, Apr–Jun 2026); CCNI 7,258 (31 July 2025).
CharityIQ is built for the three-quarters of the sector that runs on under £100,000 a year — the small charities these numbers describe.