What are trustees?
Trustees are the people in charge of a charity. They help to make the UK the sixth most giving country in the world.
They play a vital role, volunteering their time and working together to make important decisions about the charity’s work.
Trustees’ Week is an annual event to showcase the great work that trustees do and highlight opportunities for people from all walks of life to get involved and make a difference.
What do we know about trustees?
As part of Trustees’ Week 2017 we published new research about charity trustees in England and Wales. Find out more about Taken on Trust research on GOV.UK
How many trustees are there?
There are approximately 196,000 charities in the UK (167,000 charities in England and Wales, 24,000 in Scotland, 5,000 registered in Northern Ireland).
And just over 1 million trustees (of which some 850,000 are in England and Wales, 180,000 in Scotland and 30,000 in Northern Ireland)
The average trustee in England and Wales is 59 years old, and 55 in Northern Ireland.
There are many young trustees too with some 86,000 trustee positions held by 16-34 year olds (of which 2,611 in Northern Ireland).