Most staff at Highland Council getting £60k+ are in teaching which got pay rises of 25% or more since 2019, the majority are in high-ranked roles
Fresh data from Highland Council shows that the majority of those paid £60,000 or more are teaching staff, whose salaries are set nationally.
The latest numbers from the council shed new light on who gets what and paints a more complicated picture with teaching staff getting significant uplifts.
Earlier, we reported how the number of employees earning more than £60,000 rose fivefold compared to six years ago from 109 in 2019 to the current number of 594.
That information came from a Freedom of Information request which asked the number of people paid over £60,000, £75,000 and over £100,000.
Salaries for teaching staff are negotiated by the Scottish Government and Cosla – the umbrella organisation that represents local authorities in Scotland.
Those who entered the £60,000 bracket are mostly head teachers, deputies and principal teachers but also lead teachers, educational psychologists, quality improvement officers.
And many of them are in receipt of a 25 per cent or more pay rises since 2019 according to figures from Education Institute of Scotland (EIS) - the main teaching union.
As can be seen from the table below in 2019 salaries were almost evenly distributed for teaching and non-teaching staff getting more than 60 grand a year.
Breakdown of Staff Salaries in 2019
But by 2025 there was a massive increase for those in teaching after accumulated annual pay rises, as can he seen in this table:
Breakdown of Staff Salaries in 2025
One element that stands out in the table below is that there are now four times as many teaching staff getting £60,000 or more than non-teaching staff.
Highland Council Staff Salaries - Teaching and Non-Teaching - through the years
But also in the last two years the first teaching employees getting more than £100,000 have appeared – two in 2024 and four in 2025.
That means there are likely four head teachers in the Highlands who are getting paid more than their bosses at the chief officer level – Bernadette Scott and Fiona Grant.
It may also lead to questions about value and how the council can sustain such levels of pay given that the Highlands is falling behind in the league tables.
