Bosses give themselves a 14% rise

Total pay for the directors of the UK's top businesses rose 14% over the past year driven by a huge jump in share-based long term incentive payments, a pay research company has found.

This took the average pay for a director of a FTSE 100 firm to £3.3m.

Basic pay rises were "relatively restrained" at 4% higher, while annual bonuses fell 8.8%. But total pay rose thanks to a 58% rise in share-based long-term incentives.

Steve Tatton, editor of Incomes Data Services 's directors' pay report, said the survey illustrated the "complex make-up of boardroom remuneration".

"With nearly two-thirds of FTSE directors benefiting from an LTIP [long-term incentive plan] award in the latest year, the higher share-based payouts clearly made up for any ground lost in lower annual bonuses," he added.

TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady said the survey's findings meant that top bosses' pay was growing 20 times faster than that of the average worker."It's one thing replacing bonuses with long-term incentive plans, but FTSE 100 companies are simply exploiting this change to make their fat cats even fatter," she said.