'Median CEO pay is now 118 times that of the median UK full-time worker, compared to 108 times in 2021 and 79 times in 2020.'
While the Tories and Bank of England have been busy telling ordinary workers to show pay restraint in a bid to prevent further inflation, they seem totally relaxed about the fact that the bosses of the UK’s 100 biggest listed companies collected an average £500,000 pay rise last year.
The average pay rise for a FTSE 100 CEO was 16% last year, according to research by the High Pay Centre thinktank, which also found that FTSE 100 CEO pay increased from £3.38m in 2021 to £3.91m in 2022. That means median CEO pay is now 118 times that of the median UK full-time worker, compared to 108 times in 2021 and 79 times in 2020.
Pascal Soriot of AstraZeneca was the highest paid CEO, making £16.85m, ahead of Charles Woodburn of BAE Systems who made £10.69 million.
Luke Hildyard, the director of the High Pay Centre, said: “At a time when so many households are struggling with living costs, an economic model that prioritises a half-a-million-pound pay rise for executives who are already multimillionaires is surely going wrong somewhere.
“How major employers distribute the wealth that their workforce creates has a big impact on people’s living standards. We need to give workers more voice on company boards, strengthen trade union rights and enable low- and middle- income earners to get a fairer share in relation to those at the top.”
Commenting on the figures published by the High Pay Centre today, TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak said: “While millions of families have seen their budgets shredded by the cost of living crisis, City directors have enjoyed bumper pay rises.
“This is why workers must be given seats on company boards to inject some much-needed common sense and restraint.
“We need an economy that delivers better living standards for all – not just those at the top.
“But under the Tories Britain has become a land of grotesque extremes. As households across the country have struggled to put food on the table, sales of Porsches have hit record levels.”
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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