The annual salaries of chief executives officers at FTSE 100 companies have reached a record high for the third year in a row, a Bloomberg report said citing a research by think tank High Pay Centre. The study found that the median pay for CEOs of the 100 biggest firms listed on the London Stock Exchange rose to £4.6 million (around $6.2 million).
This means that average CEO now earns 122 times more than a full-time worker in the UK. While the numbers may seem high, they are still far below the pay of top executives in the United States, the study found. A separate study showed that CEOs of major firms in the S&P 500 had a median pay of $16.8 million, almost three times higher than their UK counterparts.
Luke Hildyard, a director at the High Pay Centre told Bloomberg that these figures will add to public frustration about pay inequality. He said that many low and middle earners already think that are not getting enough of the fair share of the wealth that they help create, and this just feeds to their belief.
Melrose Industries CEOs salary tops the list at £58.9 million
According to The Guardian, the combined salary of current and former CEOs at Melrose Industries (British aerospace manufacturing industry), Simon Peckham and Peter Dilnot respectively for the last financial year, stands the highest at £58.9 million. Andy Bird and Omar Abbosh, current and former CEOs respectively, of Pearson have bagged the second spot with a collective earning of £18.9 million.
List of top 10 CEOs of FTSE companies that have the highest pay
As seen from the table above, AstraZeneca‘s CEO, Pascal Soriot, lost his spot as the highest-paid CEO in the FTSE 100 after two years at the top. In the last financial year, he slipped to third place with total pay of £14.7 million.
The engineering group Melrose had caused quit an uproar in June when it gave out a huge bonus pool worth more than £175 million. The rewards, given in company shares, went to 21 current and former executives under a scheme launched in 2020. Most of this money, as per the report, went to co-founder Simon Peckham, former chair Christopher Miller, and former finance chief Geoffrey Martin.
As per The Guardian, large listed companies are increasingly using long-term incentive plans (LTIPs) to reward their chief executives. The report suggests that in the last financial year, 84 out of the top 100 chief executives received such high payments, which is increased from 81 the year before.