Today’s lunch is more than a sandwich

As you tuck into your sandwich this lunchtime (presumably a refreshing change from all the turkey sandwiches you enjoyed last week), bosses of Britain's biggest companies will have made more money since the start of the year than the typical worker will during 2024.

By 13:00 GMT today (Thursday 4 January) the pay of FTSE 100 CEOs will have overtaken the £34,963 annual median wage for full-time workers, the (Ronseal inspired) High Pay Centre says.

Including pensions, the top bosses' average reward amounts to £3.81m per year, the centre reports, which equates to approximately £1,170 per hour or 109 times the average full-time worker.

Not so well-off City lawyers will pass the mark at the beginning of next week whilst the top earning bankers overtake the average worker's pay on 17 January.

In surprises right up there with the Pope being a Catholic, The Trades Union Congress (TUC), which represents 48 member unions, said the figures were a sign that the UK faced "obscene levels of pay inequality".  By way of balance, a spokesperson for the CBI said: "High pay is only acceptable when matched by exceptional performance. Firms should also always demonstrate how executive pay links to the delivery of company strategy.

The calculations by the High Pay Centre assumed that chief executives work 62.5 hours a week, based on a long running study from the US by Harvard Business School, so maybe you could move all the above dates back by a week or so.

Some good news at the other end of the scale comes from Moneyfacts, whose latest figures show the average rate for a two-year fixed rate mortgage had fallen from 5.92% to 5.87% in a day.  This represents the lowest figure for seven months.

Halifax and HSBC have begun the year with rate cuts to keep hold of customers, as their own funding costs have dropped, with more reductions expected to follow.  However, rates will remain higher than many people (especially those coming off an old fix) have been accustomed to because of the significant changes over the past two years.

Richard Fearon, chief executive at Leeds Building Society, told the BBC's Today programme: "This mortgage price war has become very visible this week. There is always a Christmas slowdown, but we've seen the market come back with a bang and it's really competitive. Rates are down one percentage point or so since their peak."