UK bosses earn 130 times more than workers – Daily Business

The pay gap between the leaders and employees of Britain’s biggest listed companies is at its widest in eight years, according to new data.

Britain’s top executives received record remuneration last year, with median pay for FTSE 100 chief executives hitting £5.06m in the last financial year, according to data released by the High Pay Centre,.

This represents an 8.6% increase on the £4.66m in 2024 and the highest level on record.

CEOs took pay and bonus cuts during the pandemic lockdowns but remuneration has been rising strongly. Listed company bosses are now paid 130 times the salary of the average full-time UK worker (£39,000), up from 124 times in the previous financial year.

It is the biggest gap since the ratio hit 137 in the year to the end of March 2018.

Of the 94 large listed companies in the analysis, 66 increased their chief executive’s pay package from the previous year.

The mean long-term incentive payment (LTIP) increased by a fifth to £2.7m, and the mean short-term incentive payment (STIP) rose 14% to £1.8m.

Pascal Soriot, chief executive of the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, was the FTSE 100’s highest-paid boss last year, taking home £17.7m.

The High Pay Centre said FTSE 100 firms had spent £856.6m on pay during the last financial year, including £550m remunerating chief executives.

The think tank, founded in 2011 is to close after 15 years campaigning for fairer pay for workers.

Its interim director, Andrew Speke, told The Guardian, which reported the data,: “The substantial growth in the gap between executive and worker pay in the last year should be a wake-up call to those who’ve turned a blind eye to rising executive pay.

“We hope that a change in prime minister and a renewed focus on economic fairness will lead to economic inequality and corporate excess returning up the political agenda.”

Andy Burnham, who will become the prime minister on Monday, has previously said there needs to be a public debate about high and excessive pay, and has promised to give “breathing space” as soon as he can to families struggling with the cost of living.