Top UK CEOs make more in year than average worker in lifetime – study

Pay for the bosses of Britain’s top companies has increased to the highest level on record and now outpaces the compensation of the median full-time worker in the country by 120 times, a new study has revealed.

According to the High Pay Centre, a UK think tank that focuses on the causes and consequences of economic inequality, the median FTSE 100 CEO was paid £4.19 million ($5.34 million) in 2023.

This is the highest level of median executive pay on record, and an increase of 2.2% from 2022. The median earnings of a full-time worker in the country, meanwhile, stood at £34,963 last year. The annual compensation of UK executives is thus higher than what the median worker is able to earn in a lifetime of employment.

The number of FTSE 100 companies awarding eight-figure pay packages of over £10 million more than doubled, from four firms in 2022 to nine in 2023.

The report indicated that the highest paid FTSE 100 chief executive was AstraZeneca’s Pascal Soriot, who topped the list for a second year running, with compensation of £16.85 million in 2023, up from £15.3 million the previous year. This is 482 times what the median UK full-time worker makes.

The researchers argue that excessive spending on top earners by leading firms is making it harder to fund pay increases for the wider UK workforce.

“The huge pay gap between executives and the wider UK workforce is a result of factors such as the decline of trade union membership, low levels of worker participation in business decision-making and a business culture that puts the interests of investors before workers, customers, suppliers and other stakeholders,” said Luke Hildyard, the director of the High Pay Centre.

“These developments have been very good for those at the top but it is more questionable whether they are in the interests of the country as a whole,” he pointed out.