How bosses of blue-chip firms have pocketed the average worker’s 2021 pay in just three days
The average blue-chip chief will tonight have been paid more for 2021 than most employees receive in the whole year, figures show.
Bosses of FTSE 100 companies are paid a median of £3.61million per year, or about £941 per hour, according to thinktank the High Pay Centre.
This means that after 33 working hours in 2021 – roughly 5.30pm today – most chief executives will have received more than the average £31,461 salary earned by UK workers.
Bosses of FTSE 100 companies are paid a median of £3.61m per year, or about £941 per hour, according to thinktank the High Pay Centre
This was slightly down from 34 working hours last year, the centre said, following a slight rise in worker pay and no change in chief executive pay.
But Luke Hildyard, director of the High Pay Centre, said executive pay at FTSE 100 companies was still roughly 120 times higher than that of typical UK workers, up from a multiple of 20 during the 1980s.
He added: ‘Factors such as the increasing role played by the finance industry in the economy, the outsourcing of low-paid work and the decline of trade union membership have widened the gaps between those at the top and everybody else over recent decades.
‘These figures will raise concern about the governance of big businesses and whether major employers are distributing pay in a way that rewards the contribution of different workers fairly.
‘They should also prompt debate about the effects that high levels of inequality can have on social cohesion, crime, and public health and wellbeing.’