A spokesperson said: "Our Chief Executive’s annual salary is subject to regular independent review. It is within the parameters of the going rate for major UK charities, both animal welfare and other.”
Other big payers included World Wildlife Fund UK, which increased the pay for its chief executive David Nussbaum from £120,000 to £140,000.
Andrew Flanagan, the NSPCC’s chief executive, saw his pay increase from £160,000 to £170,000, while the number of staff on more than £60,000 jumped from 31 to 49.
Shelter's chief executive Campbell Robb was paid £120,000 last year while the number of staff there paid over £60,000 increased from five to eight.
Barnardo’s saw its staff on more than £60,000 increase from 30 to 35, while the pay for its former chief executive Anne Marie Carrie pay fell from £169,999 to £159,999.
An NSPCC spokesman said Mr Flanagan’s pay had now been frozen until 2014. It said the big increase on those on over £60,000 a year was “down to a large number of new frontline services opening across the country and new senior staff being employed to design, open and run them”.
A Shelter spokesman said there had been an increase on those paid more than £60,000 because of a “strategic decision to recruit at that level”.
A Barnardo’s spokesman said that the increase was “due to an expansion in our services and retail operations and other changes in our business requirements. No new appointments were made and in the last year this number has fallen to 32”.
The Telegraph disclosed on Tuesday details of the number of top executives at aid charities who were paid more than £100,000 a year.
The research found that executives receiving six-figure salaries at Britain’s leading aid charities, and those linked to them, rose by nearly 60 per cent from 19 to 30 over the past three years, while donations and revenues were down in many