Royal Air Force Museum

Royal Air Force Museum scores 82 out of 100 (4 stars — Good) on CharityCompare's Clarity Score, our independent read of its UK regulator filings. Around 80% of its spending goes to charitable activities (3-yr avg) and its accounts are up to date. That reflects how transparent and financially healthy it looks on paper — it does not measure the real-world impact of its work, so treat it as one factor alongside the cause you care about. CharityCompare never tells you where to donate.

The register data used for this profile lists Royal Air Force Museum as a registered charity (charity number 1197541). Verify it on the official register: https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-details/?regId=1197541&subId=0. Check the current entry and the identity of anyone requesting money. Registration does not verify a particular appeal; Clarity Score summarises filing transparency, not programme impact.

Royal Air Force Museum's charity number is 1197541. Check that number on the official register (Charity Commission, OSCR or CCNI) or this CharityCompare profile before you donate — scammers sometimes reuse real numbers on fake appeals.

Royal Air Force Museum scores 82 out of 100 on CharityCompare (4 stars — Good). The Clarity Score (method v1.1) sums four pillars from UK regulator filings: Accountability & Transparency (40 pts), Financial Health (30), Financial Efficiency (20), and Community Support (10). Stars use the same bands as those labels — 90+ is 5★ Exceptional. It is not an impact ranking.

CharityCompare does not host public user reviews for Royal Air Force Museum. Instead you get a filing-based Clarity Score, cause spend, reserves and red flags such as late accounts (none flagged on this profile). For formal complaints about a charity, contact the Charity Commission, OSCR, CCNI or the Fundraising Regulator as appropriate.

Across the recent disclosed accounts used for this score, 80% of Royal Air Force Museum's total spending went to charitable activities (3-yr avg across disclosed years). That is the closest official figure to "how much of your donation reaches the cause" — it is an average across all spending in the filing, not a pound-by-pound breakdown of an individual gift.

Across the recent disclosed accounts used for this score, fundraising costs were about 4% of total expenditure and fundraising plus separately reported governance figures amount to about 5% of expenditure (2023–2025, disclosed years); these categories can overlap, so this is not a distinct total of all administration costs at Royal Air Force Museum. Royal Air Force Museum's annual return for the year ending 31 March 2025 reports 10 employees paid more than £60,000, including 3 employees paid more than £100,000. The highest reported pay band is £120,001–£130,000 (1 employee). Individual salaries, including the chief executive's, are disclosed in the trustees' annual report rather than on the register.

Royal Air Force Museum reported £19m total income in its 2025 accounts, based on UK regulator filings. Five-year trend: stable.

Filing status: up to date (last filing 2025-12-12). CharityCompare flags late or missing accounts separately from the financial score.

Royal Air Force Museum's registered contact address is in London (NW9 5LL). It tells the regulator it operates in England and Wales, with a focus on armed forces.

The Charity Commission register does not name individual salaries. Royal Air Force Museum's annual return for the year ending 31 March 2025 reports 10 employees paid more than £60,000, including 3 employees paid more than £100,000. The highest reported pay band is £120,001–£130,000 (1 employee). Charities normally disclose the chief executive's pay, or the pay of their highest-paid staff, in the remuneration note of the trustees' annual report and accounts.

Royal Air Force Museum reported £19m total income for the year ending 31 March 2025. The largest sources were donations and legacies £14m (73%), trading and fundraising events £3.9m (21%), investments £787k (4%). Legacies (gifts in wills) contributed £75k.

The register records Royal Air Force Museum as registered with HMRC for Gift Aid, so a UK taxpayer can usually add 25p to every £1 they give by making a Gift Aid declaration.

Royal Air Force Museum's annual return for the year ending 31 March 2025 reports that no trustee received remuneration or other benefits from the charity.

Royal Air Force Museum was entered on the register on 17 January 2022.

We calculate a Clarity Score of 0–100 from four pillars in Royal Air Force Museum's regulator filings: Accountability & Transparency (40 points — filing history, trustees, policies), Financial Health (30 — reserves, income trend, debt), Financial Efficiency (20 — cause spend and fundraising cost, on a graduated scale) and Community Support (10 — volunteer-to-staff ratio). An open statutory inquiry scores 0. The score measures reporting on paper, not programme impact. CharityCompare is free for donors, takes no commission on donations, and scores cannot be bought.

This profile was last updated on 6 September 2026 from the latest UK regulator data available to CharityCompare, and Royal Air Force Museum's most recent accounts cover 2025. Scores and figures refresh whenever we re-ingest the register, so the page reflects our latest data pull rather than a one-off review.