The bosses of Britain’s biggest companies will have made more money in 2023 by Thursday afternoon than the average UK worker will earn in the entire year, according to analysis by the High Pay Centre, of vast pay gaps amid strike action and the cost of living crisis.
By 2pm on the third working day of the year, a FTSE 100 chief executive will have been paid more on an hourly basis than a UK worker’s annual salary. This year, FTSE 100 bosses will pass the pay milestone nine hours earlier than they did in 2022.
FTSE 100 chief executives are paid £3.4m on average, which works out at 103 times the £33,000 average salary for full-time UK workers
According to the GMB trade union, it would take a 999 ambulance call handler almost 150 years to match the pay of the average chief executive.
Executive pay has increased dramatically after a dip during the pandemic, while ordinary workers are struggling to secure pay rises anywhere near inflation. Median FTSE 100 CEO pay is up 39% on January 2022, while the median worker’s pay has increased by only 6% over the same period.
Executives below CEO level in the FTSE 100 and the senior bosses of the next 250 largest UK companies would need to work until 11 January for their pay to overtake the annual earnings of the median UK worker.
A lawyer in a magic circle law firm would need to work until 9 January, while a partner in one of the big four accountancy firms would wait until 16 January, and it would be a day later for a top banker at one of the UK’s five biggest listed banks.
Every person in the top 1% of full-time UK earners, making at least £145,000, will have overtaken the annual earnings of the median employee by 23 March.
“It’s an utter disgrace,” said Gary Smith, the general secretary of the GMB, which represents ambulance workers set to go on strike next week. “NHS workers and others are being forced on to the picket lines just to make ends meet while these fat cats get the cream.”
Luke Hildyard, the director of the High Pay Centre, said: “In the worst economic circumstances that most people can remember, it is difficult to believe that a handful of top earners are still raking in such extraordinary amounts of money. The UK economy really cannot afford for such a big share of the wealth that is created by all workers to be captured by such a tiny number of people at the top..."
The highest-paid FTSE 100 CEO was Sébastien de Montessus, of Endeavour, which operates goldmines in Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and Senegal. He was paid £16.9m, including an £8m “one-off award” when the firm relocated from Toronto to London. The second highest-paid boss was Pascal Soriot, of AstraZeneca, who was paid £13.9m.
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