How we spend your money
Read our Annual report and accounts 2022/23
See how far we’ve come and discover how your support is powering progress.
We want to bring about a world where everybody lives longer, better lives, free from the fear of cancer. And thanks to your support, we’re able to fund some of the world’s best scientists to carry out cutting-edge research that saves and improves lives every day. In this report, you can read about the progress we’ve made together this year and how we spent the money we received to achieve it. You can download the report but if you’re looking for a quick summary of where your support goes, this page has got you covered.
Our income
We can only achieve our mission to beat cancer thanks to the incredible generosity of our supporters, volunteers and partners.
In 2022/23, we raised a total of £719m. This includes:
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£490m from fundraising, including £261m in legacies
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£127m from trading activities such as our shops
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£9m from our portfolio of investments
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£93m from royalties and grants, including our share of sales from innovations developed from our research.
Our expenditure
Every pound is important. That’s why we carefully decide where best to spend our money to power progress for people affected by cancer.
In 2022/23, our annual expenditure was £641m. This includes:
• £398m committed to research
• £27m on information and influencing work
• £109m raising donated income and managing our investments
• £107m running our shops and other trading activity.
Our world-leading research
The amount we spend varies year to year as we don’t allocate all our resources ahead of time.
In 2022/23, we committed £398m to cancer research. Some of this will be paid out this year, and some of it will be paid out in future years during the life of the research projects we’ve committed to.
This year, we spent £415m on cancer research. This includes money we committed to in previous years but paid out this year, as well as money paid out to new projects we committed to this year.
We are beating cancer step by step, year by year.
The progress we've made
Your support and the world-class research we fund today will lead to discoveries that can be turned into new tests and treatments in the future, just as the research we funded many years ago is saving and improving lives today.
Thank you for making breakthroughs happen.
Our annual research activity
In 2022/23, we spent £415m on new and ongoing research. This includes:
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£176m on research projects focused on specific cancer types
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£89m relevant to all types of cancer (eg research infrastructure and research studies looking at cancer survivorship)
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£83m on basic research understanding the fundamental biology of cancer
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£40m on research admin and support costs (eg peer review, grant management, IT and other support costs)
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£27m on revenue shares (share of royalties from sales of innovations developed from our research, which we passed on to others)
In 2022/23, we spent £18.7m on research specific to cancers that affect 0–24-year-olds, making us the biggest charitable funder of research into children’s and young people’s cancers.
Our annual spend on specific cancer type research
In 2022/23 we spent £176m on research projects focused on specific cancer types. Here’s how that breaks down for spend per cancer type.
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£23m lung £21m colon and rectal £20m breast £16m leukaemia £12m brain £12m other £11m pancreatic £9m prostate £7m oesophageal |
£6m ovarian £5m kidney £5m non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma £5m melanoma £4m liver £4m myeloma £3m sarcoma £2m pharyngeal £2m bladder |
£1m neuroblastoma £1m cervical £1m Hodgkin’s lymphoma £1m oral cavity and lip £1m laryngeal £1m stomach £1m thyroid £1m endometrial £1m anal |
Pence in the pound
In 2022/23, for every £1 you donated, 82p was available to beat cancer. The amount available varies from year to year, but we aim to keep it around the 80p mark.
We don’t include our trading activities in this calculation, as our shops operate like other retail businesses, raising funds through selling merchandise. This also shows you the impact of your donations and means you can easily compare us with other charities that don’t have retail shops.
Chief Executive and staff salaries
We know it’s important for you to know how we spend your donations. We’re transparent in all areas of our work.
Our Chief Executive, Michelle Mitchell OBE, was paid £254,900 base salary between April 2022 and March 2023.
As the world’s leading cancer charity, dedicated to saving lives through research, influence and information, we need to attract and retain high-performing people. The salaries we pay reflect individual responsibilities and performance, whilst ensuring the best use of your donations.
We employ people to help us achieve our vision of a world where everyone can live longer, better lives, free from the fear of cancer. For a more detailed breakdown of staff pay, please see page 141 of our Annual Report and Accounts.(PDF).
More information
Teams of experts collaborate with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, along with the research community, to translate scientific discoveries into cutting-edge therapies. Find out more about how we partner with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies here.
The host institution list is an analysis of grant costs by host institution which forms part of our audited accounts.
Some of our scientists serve on our grant-making committees and lead research projects that receive grant funding from Cancer Research UK during the year.