Search for the highest paying remote jobs and you get the same list every time. Software engineer, data scientist, cybersecurity, product manager. They do pay well. But there's a quieter group that rarely makes the list: compliance and financial crime. Fintechs and tech firms hire for these roles, and some let you do it from home. We checked our own board to see what they actually advertise.
What are the highest paying remote jobs in the UK?
Salary guides mostly agree on the usual suspects. One 2026 guide we read puts software engineers at £50,000 to £80,000 at entry to mid level, senior AI and machine learning roles at £90,000 to £120,000, and the best cybersecurity specialists at £70,000 to £100,000 or more. It also lists fintech compliance and risk at £60,000 to £90,000.
Treat those as rough. Guides pull from different sources, and most don't separate remote pay from office pay.
Why compliance belongs on the list
Regulated firms have to check their customers, monitor transactions and report anything suspicious, whatever the market is doing. A lot of those firms are young fintech and crypto businesses with staff spread around the country, so the work travels well.
That makes it a good option if you want a remote job that pays properly and you already have some finance, legal or risk experience.
What remote compliance roles pay on our board
When we checked on 13 October 2026, 34 of the roles live on Direct Compliance were listed as remote. Only 11 of them showed a salary. Here are eight of them. The other three are entry level roles that start between £26,000 and £40,000.
- Affirm, Compliance Manager: £101,000 to £149,000
- MyWork, Head of Compliance: £55,000 to £75,000
- Semble, Compliance Manager (UK): £50,000 to £60,000
- Coinbase, Compliance International Investigations Associate: £55,620 to £61,800
- Coinbase, Risk and Monitoring Analyst III: £53,100
- Fanvue, Fraud Investigator (Crypto): £25,000 to £60,000
- MoneyGram, Supervisor Compliance, Transaction Monitoring: $190,000 to $230,000
- MoneyGram, Compliance Investigation Analyst: $120,000 to $150,000
The two MoneyGram roles are advertised in US dollars, so check where the job is based and how you'd be paid before you get excited. The rest are in pounds. Pay figures come from the adverts, and the real offer can differ.
How that compares with office based pay
A 2026 salary guide from recruiter FD Capital puts UK compliance officers at £50,000 to £85,000, compliance managers at £70,000 to £110,000, heads of compliance at £95,000 to £150,000 and AML or KYC analysts at £32,000 to £52,000 in London. Those figures come from a recruitment firm's own placements, so read them as a guide, not an independent survey. The guide doesn't give separate pay for remote roles.
Set against those ranges, the Affirm manager role sits above the top. The MyWork and Semble roles sit below the bottom. With only 11 roles showing pay, we wouldn't read too much into that. The fair summary is that remote doesn't mean a pay cut by default, and it doesn't guarantee a premium either.
How to find and apply for them
Read the location line on every advert. "Remote, UK" and "remote, EMEA" are very different jobs, and the second can mean a contract abroad, a different currency or European working hours.
Roles that pay well and let you work from home tend to go quickly, so set up an alert. Our remote compliance jobs page lists every remote role we have live, and every one sends you to the employer to apply, with no recruiter in the middle. If you want the full picture on how many of these roles exist, read Remote Compliance Jobs UK: Where to Find Them. If you're weighing up agencies, here's how applying direct compares.
The higher paying roles usually want a few years behind you, because remote staff get less hand holding. That's the usual pattern, not a rule. If you're earlier in your career, our plain English guide to AML is a good place to start.
FAQs
What is the highest paying remote job in the UK?
Going by the guides we read, technical roles like senior software engineering and AI lead the list. Among compliance roles on our board, the highest pay advertised in pounds was £149,000 for a compliance manager at Affirm.
Can you earn six figures in remote compliance?
Sometimes. One of the 11 remote roles that showed pay on our board advertised more than £100,000 in pounds. Six figure remote roles look rare, though that is a small sample.
Do remote compliance jobs pay less than office jobs?
Not by default. Some sit below the usual salary ranges and one sits above. Pay depends more on the employer, the seniority and the location of the company than on whether you work from home.
Pay data from the Direct Compliance board on 13 October 2026. Roles change daily, so check the advert for the current figure. This is general information, not careers or financial advice.
Read next: Compliance Officer Salary UK (2026): Pay by Level and Why Sanctions Specialists Are Becoming Compliance's Best-Paid Niche in 2026.