Bosses at the UK’s biggest listed companies saw their average pay soar to £3.41million last year, according to figures.
The median pay package for FTSE 100 chief executives was up by 39 per cent from £2.46million the year before, data compiled by the High Pay Centre and the TUC showed.
It comes days after separate figures showed that, after accounting for inflation, UK workers’ average pay fell by 4.1 per cent in the second quarter – the biggest fall in records dating back two decades.
Soaring: The median pay package for FTSE 100 chief executives was up by 39 per cent
The squeeze looks likely to worsen with inflation now in double figures and the new energy price cap, to be announced this week, expected to push typical annual bills past £3,500 from October.
The figures showed average FTSE 100 bosses’ pay was 109 times that of the average UK worker. Luke Hildyard, director of the High Pay Centre, said: ‘Very high executive pay is a big part of the cost of living problem. 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.’
Top of the list was Sebastien de Montessus, the French chief executive of gold miner Endeavour, with a £16.85million pay package.
Sir Pascal Soriot – head of AstraZeneca – earned £13.86million, while another drugs firm boss, GlaxoSmithKline’s Dame Emma Walmsley, was paid £8.2million.
The bosses of Lloyds Banking Group and gambling giant Flutter – owner of brands including Paddy Power and Betfair – were also in the top ten.
The sharp increase in average FTSE 100 pay appears to be partly explained by being compared with a period the year before when many chief executives gave up annual bonuses amid the pandemic. But the average pay figure was still 5 per cent higher than the £3.25million recorded in 2019.
The report called for reforms including requirements for companies to include a minimum of two elected worker representations on the remuneration committees that set pay.
TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said: ‘These unbalanced pay policies have seen the gap widen between workers and bosses this year, adding to the cost of living crisis.’
But Len Shackleton, of the Institute of Economic Affairs thinktank, said that FTSE 100-listed firms were not generally British companies ‘which the government and pressure groups can boss around in response to the latest political whim’.
The list excludes bosses of privately owned firms such as Bet 365, whose chief executive Denise Coates took home nearly £300million in the year to March 2021.
