The UUA provides salary guidance in order to assist and empower congregational leaders in making values-based compensation decisions.
New Format
Information about the Congregation Salary Program has been newly formatted as a book of pages. We hope this makes it easy for you to find just what you need!
Economic Justice
Our program is grounded in economic justice, creating opportunities for all to thrive. Economic justice consists of both procedural justice (how pay decisions are made and implemented) and distributive justice (the amount of pay given to employees).
Process is primary! We put a special emphasis on procedural justice – helping you ensure that your pay policies and practices are equitable, transparent, and particularly attentive to employees who may tend to be marginalized due to their positions and/or identities. Please start your compensation journey by reviewing our values-aligned Salary Policies and Practices on the next page.
Adjustments for 2026-2027
Recommended salary ranges have increased 2% for all positions, in keeping with nonprofit salary structure trends. A 2% raise will keep an employee at the same position within their salary range.
Career-Path and Community-Based Positions
Our Recommended Salary Ranges are constructed with UU career-path employees in mind – in other words, for those whose equivalent work is within Unitarian Universalism. These are staff with more potential for career development and progression within our faith and who are more likely to view their work as a vocation.
Employees in community-based positions (those not tied to UU career paths) have more potential for local job opportunities and are more likely to pay attention to the local job market. For your community-based staff, prevailing wages for comparable work in your area are also important to consider, potentially more important than UUA Recommended Salary Ranges.
Separate Salary Information
- For Ministerial Intern salaries, see Guidelines for Ministerial Student Internships in the Internship Clearinghouse.
- A Summary of Changes from previous years (going back to 2017) is available on the Salary Recommendations: Historical Information page.