Almost half of voluntary sector income is from the public (the largest source) followed by close to a third from the government. Voluntary organisations carry out a range of different types of work. Social services – a relatively broad category – is the largest voluntary subsector, representing just under a fifth of the sector by size.

In 2022 when inflation rose to 11%, charities were forced to their limits during the cost of living crisis and the number of charity closures rose, but initial data from 2023 suggests the rate of closure may be slowing once again. The voluntary sector workforce is distributed around the UK in a pattern relatively close to the population distribution, although London and the south, and Scotland are slightly over-represented. People aged between 65 and 74 are the age group most likely to volunteer, both formally and informally, on a regular basis. Formal volunteering for this age group is twice the rate of those aged between 25 and 34. In the longer term, government income has broadly plateaued over the last decade, while falling as a proportion of total income, as organisations have increased their funding from alternate sources. Just under half of all voluntary organisations rely on the public for the majority of their income.

Informal volunteering (which includes giving unpaid help without being involved in groups, clubs, or organisations) is less visible. The voluntary sector has a paid workforce of about 925,000, which is down 4% in 2022, reversing the previous year’s increase. The voluntary sector workforce has grown by 24% since 2011. Volunteering participation varies by ethnicity, but different data sources tell different stories. Women and disabled people are relatively more likely to volunteer informally, with no differences by gender or disability for formal volunteering. Across the four nations, Scotland has the highest rate of voluntary organisations per population (3.6 per 1,000 people), followed by Northern Ireland (3.4), England (2.4), and Wales (2.3).

The pandemic appears to have encouraged the growth of micro organisations in 2020/21, but with a decline in the number of small and medium organisations. Women make up the majority of the voluntary sector workforce at 67%. After a dip in 2018, the number of men working in the voluntary sector has remained stable at 33%. Those living in the least deprived areas are twice as likely to have volunteered formally at least monthly than those in the most deprived areas, reflected in higher levels of regular volunteering in the more affluent south of England.Charity closures during the pandemic years were lower than predicted, although the number of newly registered charities fell below average in 2021. Income and spending had increased consistently since 2000/01, but the rate of growth had slowed by 2019/20, and both fell in 2020/21, the first full year of the pandemic: income fell by 6% with spend decreasing by 8%. Smaller organisations receive a larger share of income from the public than larger ones. Environmental and parent-teacher organisations in particular depend on the public for more than two thirds of their income. Medium charities pay the least on average at all experience levels, even when compared to micro and small charities, although there has been a slight decrease in salaries for micro and small charities since 2019. Voluntary organisations that focus on social services, research and international development make up most of the top 10 voluntary organisations by income.

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Larger organisations receive much more income from government than smaller ones. The social services sector in particular receives a large amount of funding from government, both in absolute terms and as a proportion of income. As this report only covers the first full year of the covid-19 pandemic period, the next Almanac edition will provide further evidence of the ongoing impact. An estimated 14.2m people (27% of people) volunteered through a group, club or organisation in 2021/22. This is down from 16.3 (30%) million in 2020/21, and 20m (37%) in 2019/20. Around a third work at least partially remotely: 28% work from their own home and 10% work from different places with home as a base. Over a third of the voluntary sector workforce are employed in social work. Larger organisations are more likely to be active nationally and internationally, while smaller voluntary organisations are more likely to operate locally.

While levels of formal volunteering had remained largely unchanged from 2015/16 to 2019/20, they dropped sharply at the start of the pandemic in 2020/21, but the rate of decline has now slowed. In 2020/21 there were 163,959 voluntary organisations, a very small decrease since 2019/2020. The vast majority of voluntary organisations are micro and small. Chinese Lunar Calendar 24 Solar Terms Five Elements Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches China HolidaysVolunteering at least monthly was maintained at 16%, with little further decline in 2021/22 after the sharp drop from 23% in 2019/20 to 17% in 2020/21. This is the first year that NCVO has included data on charity vacancies and salary levels, produced in partnership with CharityJob. The voluntary sector is less ethnically diverse than the private and public sectors, with 90% of its staff identifying as white, compared to 86% for the public and 87% for the private.