NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHY CENTRE

Registered charity 1185265 · accounts filings on the Charity Commission register · also known as NOC · also registered in Scotland as SC049896 (OSCR)

NOC is a marine science research and technology institution which undertakes integrated sea level science, coastal and deep ocean research and technology development. NOC contribute to the advancement of scientific knowledge of the ocean and support education and training of scientists, engineers and marine professionals and engaging the public with the science of the ocean and its implications.

Causes: Education/training · Arts/culture/heritage/science · Grant history (this charity is a funder) · website · Get email alerts

Financial health, per its FY2025 accounts

The accounts state that unrestricted reserves stood at £20,116,000, which is above the stated policy target of £8,000,000 required for operational risk cover. The charity reported a net expenditure of £2,977,000, resulting in a decrease in total reserves, but cash levels remained healthy at £34,850,000.

Automated summary of the FY2025 accounts; the evidenced findings below carry the verbatim passages.

What the accounts disclose

Accounts audited by BDO LLP. Discloses 3 of 6 completeness components.

Public fundraising profile: JustGiving — National Oceanography Centre (matched by registered charity number).

Leadership, per the charity’s website

• Prof. John Siddorn — Chief Executive Officer (source)
• Julie Pringle-Stewart — Chief Operating Officer; Chief Finance Officer (source)
• Prof. Penny Holliday — Chief Scientific Officer (source)
• Dr Jon Blower — Director of Digital Science (source)
• Natalie Campbell — Director of Operations (source)
• Dr Maaten Furlong — Director of Engineering Science (source)
• Huw Gullick — Director of Applied Science (source)
• Joanna Lloyd-Jones — Director of People and Culture (source)

Listed on the charity’s own website when we last crawled it; roles may have changed. Pay-band disclosures above are anonymous statutory disclosures and are not attributed to any named individual.

Funders the charity credits

Named as funders/supporters on the charity’s own website (the charity’s claim, distinct from accounts-verified grants).

• NERC — “IGNITE is a NERC-funded Doctoral Landscape Award designed to prepare researchers to tackle the most pressing environmental challenges, inclu…” (source page)
• UK Space Agency — “SENSE is an Earth Observation DTP funded by NERC and the UK Space Agency.” (source page)
• Nippon Foundation of Japan — “NOC is a host institute supporting the Nippon Foundation of Japan Fellowship Programme, as executed by DOALOS. The Fellowship fund provides …” (source page)

Public-sector contracts awarded

From the official Contracts Finder and Find a Tender notices (supplier matched by exact registered name). Contract income is distinct from grants.

UK research funding (UKRI Gateway to Research)

• Glider-based Acoustic Monitoring of Ocean Sound —
• Resilient Farming Futures: Detecting agroecosystem ‘resilience’ using novel data science methods —
• API 4 AI —
• Sensing On Urban Noise: Distributed Sensing For Collaborative And Sustainable Cityscapes And Living Environments (SOUNDSCALE) —
• Predicting Biological Carbon in the Ocean Globally (PRECOG) —
• STREAM 1: Maritime and Last Mile Net Zero (MaLaMi) —
• Coastal and Inland Waters Heritage Science Facility —
• Dating and Isotopic Characterisation for Decarbonisation, Energy, Environment (DICharDEE) —
• SeaDream - Sustainable Marine Energy and Ecosystem Resilience Advancement through Digital Technologies and RealTime Crisis Management —
• UKRI National Federated Compute Services NetworkPlus —

Property (HM Land Registry)

2 registered titles in England and Wales held by the charity’s company or corporate body (0 freehold). All charity-held property. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright, OGL v3.0.

Public profiles (found on the charity’s own website): facebook (6,474 likes) · instagram (12K followers)

Advertised salaries (public job ads)

Roles this charity has advertised on CharityJob, matched on the exact employer name. A different source from the statutory pay bands above: these are asking salaries for vacancies, not what anyone was paid.

• ROV Mechanical / Systems Engineer · Hybrid work in Southampton
• Business Data Manager · Hybrid work in Liverpool
• Business Data Manager · Hybrid work in Liverpool
• Director of Engineering Science (Marine Technology) · Hybrid work in Southampton

Structured financials (annual return, FY ending 30/09/2025)

Reported reserves equal ~2.7 months of spending — below the median for charities its size (median 4.6 months; benchmarks).

Per its annual return, largest income source: Donations and legacies (81% of income) — components as reported reconcile to the return’s total income; not from the accounts narrative.

Per its annual return, cost of raising funds: 9.7% of total income — above the median for charities its size (3.8%) (benchmarks).

Trustees · trustee networks

• David Jeremy Darrochchair
• Clare Mary Petre Harbord · trustee of 1 other charity
• David Keith McSweeney · trustee of 1 other charity
• Dr HOSEIN KHAJEH-HOSSEINY · trustee of 3 other charities
• John Francis Clarke
• Professor Lisa Maureen Collins
• Rebecca Jane Munro · trustee of 1 other charity
• Sir MICHAEL DIXON KBE BSC · trustee of 1 other charity

Trustee list from the Charity Commission register (current, not historical).

Operates in: Antigua And Barbuda · Argentina · Austria · Bangladesh · Belize · Cambodia · Canada · Cape Verde · Chile · China · Dominica · Falkland Islands

Income and spending

Common questions

Known funders

Grants to this charity found in funders’ own accounts filings.

Government & lottery funding

Grants to this charity published as open data by government and lottery funders (360Giving).

Funders of similar charities

Funders whose accounts show grants to charities similar to this one (and no recorded grant to this charity) — a starting list for fundraisers.

Charities like this

Semantically similar by activities and financial character, from our analysed corpus. Compare with NOCN.

• NOCN income £20.1m
• Ocean Conservation Trust Limited income £7.5m
• THE SOCIETY FOR UNDERWATER TECHNOLOGY LIMITED income £356k
• NEKTON FOUNDATION income £3.2m
• PARTNERSHIP FOR OBSERVATION OF THE GLOBAL OCEAN income £780k
• NORTH SEA CONSERVATION income £294k

Side by side with its peers

Each row is that charity’s latest analysed filing; every value is quote-backed on its own page.