Nick Robinson and Fiona Bruce are now the highest-paid journalists at the BBC after the departure of Huw Edwards, according to the BBC annual report for 2024/25.
Robinson was paid between £410,000 and £414,999 (up 19% year on year) for work that included presenting the Today programme on BBC Radio 4, the Today and Political Thinking podcasts, and UK general election leadership interviews for Panorama.
Bruce’s pay was within the same salary band (up 1% year on year) for work including Question Time, news presenting on BBC One, and general election coverage.
One other journalist was paid more than £400,000: BBC Radio Ulster’s Stephen Nolan, paid between £405,000 and £409,999 for work that also included Nolan Live on BBC One in Northern Ireland and the Stephen Nolan Show on BBC Radio 5 Live.
In Press Gazette’s separate list of BBC News managers earning more than £178,000, CEO of news and current affairs Deborah Turness was also on more than £400,000 with a salary band of £430,000 to £434,999 – up 5% year on year.
A total of 50 on-air BBC journalists earned above £178,000 last year for their work for the corporation (excluding any amount paid by its commercial entities such as BBC Studios – for example, for Clive Myrie’s presenting work on Mastermind or Bruce on Antiques Roadshow). This is an increase on the 46 included in Press Gazette’s analysis last year.
The minimum salary required to be included in the BBC’s annual pay disclosures is £178,000. The latest figures cover the year to 31 March 2025.
Previously BBC News presenter Huw Edwards was the corporation’s highest-paid journalist, with a salary band of £475,000 to £479,999 in 2023/24 despite spending three-quarters of that financial year off-air. He was eventually sentenced to six months’ imprisonment suspended for two years in September last year after admitting accessing indecent images of children.
Scroll down for the full table of the highest-paid BBC journalists for 2024/25
For comparison, BBC director-general Tim Davie (who is editor-in-chief as part of his role) earned between £540,000 and £544,999 last year. This continues to put him as 45th on Press Gazette’s ranking of the highest-paid media executives in the UK.
Some 48% of the 50 top-earning on-air BBC journalists were women – up from 43% last year. This compares to 43% of all individuals included in the BBC’s on-air pay disclosures (including entertainment and sport roles).
Just ahead of Robinson’s 19% year-on-year increase, the biggest pay jump in the past year was for former political editor Laura Kuenssberg who now earns between £395,000 and £399,999 for work including her Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, the weekend Newscast podcast, weekly website columns, a weekly subscriber newsletter, and general election coverage.
The third-biggest rise was for Today programme presenter and Americast podcast host Justin Webb, up 14% to a salary band of £365,000 to £369,999.
Press Gazette has used the upper salary band for each journalist to create their year-on-year percentage change figures.
The biggest decreases were for BBC News Channel presenter Ben Thompson (£205,000-£209,999) and economics editor Faisal Islam (£235,000-£239,999) who both saw their upper salary bands drop by 9%.
Of those who were in the list both years, 77% saw their salaries increase while 12% stayed the same and the rest went down. The salaries can vary depend on the total amount of work done, for example with the high-profile names doing general election work potentially seeing an increase attributed to that.
There were seven new entrants to the table, including former Woman’s Hour presenter Emma Barnett who has previously been on the list but was not in 2023/24. Last year she earned between £285,000 and £289,999 after joining the Today programme in May 2024.
The second-highest new entrant was media and culture editor Katie Razzall, who earned between £220,000 and £224,999.
The other new arrivals were BBC News Channel presenters Sally Bundock and Annita McVeigh (both earning between £190,000 and £194,999) and international BBC News Channel presenters Caitríona Perry and Sumi Somaskanda in the US (both on between £185,000 and £189,000 converted from US dollars) and Steven Lai in Singapore (£178,000-£184,999 converted from Singapore dollars).
Other than Edwards, the only journalists to have left the list in the past year were Martha Kearney, who left the Today programme in July (salary band of £225,000-£229,999 in 2023/24) and Kirsty Wark who left Newsnight in the same month (£250,000-£254,999 last year).
The BBC annual report also includes details of managers who earned more than £178,000.
After Turness, the highest-paid in BBC News was her deputy CEO Jonathan Munro, who is also global director, who earned between £300,000 and £304,999 (up 5% year on year).
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