FTSE 100 chief executive average pay jumps by 39% to £3.4m

“To see CEO pay rocketing to more than 100 times the average salary is sickening,” say union bosses

“Excessive CEO pay reflects widening inequality that is experienced across the UK,” say the study’s authors (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

The average pay for chief executives of the UK’s 100 biggest companies has jumped by 39 per cent to £3.4 million.

Research by the High Pay Centre thinktank and the Trades Union Congress found median pay for FTSE 100 CEOs is now 109 times higher than that of an average full-time worker in Britain.

Union bosses say the “lack of restraint” displayed by top CEOs is a “slap in the face” for workers struggling for pay rises during the ongoing cost of living crisis.

The average salary of top company executives is also up on pre-pandemic levels, with an increase of 5 per cent from £3.25 million in 2019.

Sebastien De Montessus, CEO of metals and mining company Endeavour, tops the list of highest-paid executives with a salary of approximately £16.85 million.

Pascal Soriot of pharmaceutical and biotechnology business AstraZeneca – creators of a vaccine against Covid-19 – was next on the list, with earnings of £13.86 million.

AstraZeneca chief Pascal Soriot is one of the UK’s top CEOs with a salary of over £13 million (AstraZeneca/PA) (PA Media)

Albert Manifold of construction and materials company, CRH, followed with a salary of £11.68 million.

The analysis also found that FTSE 100 firms spent nearly three quarters of a billion pound on executive pay, with £720.21m paid to 224 executives.

Annual bonuses also reached £1.4m, compared to £828k in 2020 and £1.1m in 2019, with 90 per cent of CEOs received a bonus in 2021.

The study’s authors say that excessive pay for CEOs reflects “widening inequality that is experienced across the UK more generally.”

“If large employers are paying millions more to already very wealthy executives, that makes it harder to fund pay increases for low and middle income workers,” they said.

“If incomes in the UK were shared more evenly, that would significantly raise the living standards of the people hit hardest by the current economic crisis.”

Gary Smith, General Secretary of GMB trade union, said: “We’re in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis with many workers unable to heat their homes and feed their families.

“To see CEO pay rocketing to more than 100 times the average salary is sickening. There’s nothing wrong with being paid for a job well done, but the lack of ‘restraint’ from those at the top is a slap in the face to workers who are being denied a proper pay rise.

“That’s why across the country GMB members are taking action to defend their living standards and make work better.”