Directors’ fees are up, hours worked are up and satisfaction with remuneration is up, according to the latest Directors’ Fees Report.
Produced by The Institute of Directors in association with EY, the 2026 report provides key information on director remuneration and board practices in Aotearoa New Zealand. It is drawn from data for 4,174 directorships across 1,677 organisations.
The IoD says the median fee for non-executive directors increased 2.4 percent to $55,000, up from $53,700 in 2025. The median governance workload rose to 175 hours, up from 161 hours in 2025.
IoD chief executive Kirsten Patterson MNZM says in a statement that these shifts are strikingly consistent with the long-term trends.
Kirsten Patterson.
“In our first IoD/EY report in 2015, the median annual commitment was 124 hours. This has risen 41.1 percent over the past 11 years. Median remuneration has not kept pace, rising 32.2 percent from $41,610 in 2015.
Challenging economic conditions, the speed of development in technology, geopolitical instability and changing social expectations are all contributing to how governance is perceived and the demands on directors, Patterson says.
Time was the leading factor in directors turning down a role in 2026…
“Time was the leading factor in directors turning down a role in 2026, with 72 percent saying they could not commit the hours required to take on an additional position. This pressure can also be seen in the median number of directorships held, which is steady at three.”
EY Partner Una Diver says a gender fee gap remains, but the data is nuanced. In 2026, male non-executive directors receive a median annual fee of $58,000 compared with $54,000 for women – a gap of 6.9 percent, up from 2.4 percent in 2025. This is still below the 10 percent gap recorded in 2024.
“There is a degree to which this reflects the way governance roles are split between men and women. Boards tend to pay each member the same. So organisation type, the level of responsibility and access to leadership positions all influence the overall result,” Diver says.
“While it is clear there is a persistent gap, when we look at senior governance roles, the median remuneration for non-executive chairs was the same for men and women this year, at $75,000.”
Fee movements continue to vary considerably by sector. Among those directors in a paid role, the average rise by organisation type ranged from 3.6 percent for unlisted private companies and not-for-profits to 9.4 percent for the public sector.
“What we have seen is moves by the Government to attract people onto public sector boards. This included a long overdue lift in fees after many years of low, or no, fee movements and an increasing gap between public and commercial boards. This in turn has contributed to a lift in general satisfaction with fee levels among directors,” says Patterson.
Overall satisfaction with fee levels rose to 67.6 percent, up from 58.1 percent in 2025. The full report is on the IoD website.
Hero image Photo by Etactics Inc on Unsplash
