Bosses at Britain’s biggest companies are likely to have made more money just three working days into the year than the average UK worker will earn for the whole of 2023, according to analysis by the High Pay Centre.
Despite just working about 30 hours this year so far, the average FTSE 100 chief executive will have already earned more by 2pm yesterday than a median full-time worker’s £33,000 yearly wage.
The High Pay Centre, a think tank, said that median FTSE chief executive pay stood at £3.41 million in 2021, the latest year for which figures are available, while the median full-time worker’s salary is for 2022.
Median FTSE 100 chief executive pay had increased by 39 per cent from £2.46 million in 2020. The median worker’s wage rose by 6 per cent over the same period. This put chief executive pay at 109 times that of the UK full-time worker, compared with 79 times in 2020.
Sébastien de Montessus, president and chief executive of mining group Endeavour, was the highest paid boss, earning £16.85 million, the think tank said. He overtook the previous year’s biggest earner, Sir Pascal Soriot, of AstraZeneca, who earned £13.86 million. Dame Emma Walmsley, chief executive of GSK, was the highest paid woman at £8.4 million.
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While chief executives at Britain’s biggest companies lead the way in remuneration, the High Pay Centre estimates that it won’t take long for other leading figures to surpass the average worker’s yearly wage.
The think tank said that a FTSE 350 executive, paid on average £1.33 million, would need to work until next Wednesday to earn a median worker’s yearly wage. A partner at a “magic circle” law firm, earning an average £1.95 million, would have to work until Monday. A partner at a “big four” accountancy firm, with an average pay of £911,000 a year, would have to wait until January 16 to earn more than £33,000.
Top bankers at the five FTSE 100 banks, described as “material risk takers” in their account fillings, were paid on average £820,000 and would need to work till January 17.
Everyone in the top 1 per cent of UK earners, who all make at least £145,000 a year, would have overtaken the annual pay of a median worker by March 23.
Luke Hildyard, director of the think tank, said: “To address declining living standards for the majority, we need measures to balance the distribution of incomes more evenly.”
