39% of UK founders earn under £25,000 before cutting their pay
A survey of 295 UK founders found most took a pay cut in the past year, averaging £13,940. The money they gave up is, in practice, unrecorded runway.
The largest single group of founders in a new survey earned less than £25,000 a year from their business before making any personal sacrifice.
That is 39% of the 295 UK founders polled by Startups.co.uk, whose findings were published on 27 October 2026. The survey compares the figure to the £24,784 a full-time worker takes home on the National Living Wage.
Across all respondents, average earnings before any cuts were £39,127, according to the survey. Only 9% of founders made more than £75,000.
Then came the reductions. Three-quarters of founders gave up part of their own salary in the past 12 months, losing an average of £13,940 — a 36% cut, on the survey's figures.
Pay was not the only thing propping up the business. Some 45% of founders dipped into personal savings over the same period and 23% took on personal debt to keep the company solvent.
Just over a third, 36%, paid themselves less than the statutory minimum wage. Only 20% made no personal financial sacrifice at all.
Founders interviewed by Startups.co.uk described the mechanics. Anita Frost of Green Bean Studios said she had accepted cuts "ranging from a 20% to 40% reduction, or even months with no take-home pay".
Jo Living, founder of leadership training company Aces High London, has cut her day job from five days a week to one, giving up 80% of that salary. "I'm not yet paying myself from Aces High, so right now I'm effectively working for free, and paying my suppliers more than I pay me," she told the publication.
Anna Davies of OvaJoy has put her savings into the business and has not paid herself a salary. "You can be working harder than you've ever worked in your life, yet have less financial security than ever before," she said.
Time went the same way. Nine in ten founders gave up personal time, with 66% working weekends and 62% working evenings, the survey found.
Eighty per cent said the business had cost them time for hobbies, 79% said it had cost them holidays and 77% said their physical and mental wellbeing had suffered. More than a third, 36%, have cancelled or postponed a holiday to keep the business running.
Not everyone treats the trade as permanent. Business coach Peter Boolkah told Startups.co.uk that "sacrifice cannot be the permanent business model" and that the business has to get back to supporting the owner rather than the reverse.
Chris Wilson-Cambata of PR agency Mint Gekko was blunter about the romance of it. "There is nothing particularly noble about worrying how you're going to pay your tax bill," he said.
The practical point for anyone modelling runway is that a founder's forgone salary is a real cost that rarely appears in the forecast. An average cut of £13,940 is roughly a year of one modest expense line, funded by the founder's household rather than the company, and it hides how far the business is from covering itself.
The survey's own advice is to work out a personal break-even — housing, bills, food, debt, tax — treat that as the floor, pay on a fixed monthly schedule, and set tax aside as money arrives rather than later.