FTSE 100 Bosses' Pay Increases

The average pay for FTSE 100 bosses went up to a record £4.2m in 2023.

According to research by the High Pay Centre, Britain’s top bosses achieved a rise of £100,000 on average. This makes a FTSE 100 CEO’s earnings 120 times the wage of the average British worker.

A small group of listed companies awarded particularly lucrative deals, which led to the overall average increase. Eight businesses handed out packages in excess of £10m last year.

Unfortunately female chief executives’ pay still lags behind their male counterparts. Female pay averaged £2.69m, compared with £4.19m for male bosses. Only six companies had female bosses for the 2022-23 financial year.

Sir Pascal Soriot of AstraZeneca was the highest-paid boss at £16.85m. Relx, Rolls-Royce, BAE Systems, GSK, HSBC, Pearson and Diageo also awarded eight-figure deals to their bosses last year.

As a result of this, the High Pay Centre has pushed for limits on excessive corporate pay, which it claims hinders businesses from paying their employees more. The High Pay Centre, a think tank, has called for more transparency beyond top executive levels and for workers’ representatives to sit on remuneration committees.

The new Labour government has made no pledges to cap boardroom pay deals and has ruled out ‘wealth’ taxes on the super-rich. Luke Hildyard of the High Pay Centre said: “The huge pay gap between executives and the wider UK workforce is a result of factors like the decline of trade union membership, low levels of worker participation in business decision-making and a business culture that puts the interests of investors before workers, customers, suppliers and other stakeholders. These developments have been very good for those at the top, but it is more questionable whether they are in the interests of the country as a whole.”