Wages

 

By All Means Get Good Wages But - Mind How You Spend Them
Sam Fitton (1868-1923)
Photo Credit: Gallery Oldham [BY-NC-ND] 

Bosses of Britain's largest listed companies have taken home record-high pay packets for the third successive year, according to a thinktank.

The latest record, set in the 2024-25 financial year, means the average FTSE 100 chief executive is now paid 122 times the salary of the average full-time UK worker, analysis found.

Executive pay has been on the rise for the past four years, partly as a consequence of pay cuts taken during the pandemic, at a time when many households are struggling with a cost of living crisis.

The median pay of a FTSE 100 chief executive climbed to £4.58m in the past financial year, up from £4.29m a year earlier, an increase of nearly 7% the High Pay Centre said...

Luke Hildyard, the director of the High Pay Centre, said: "These figures will feed a growing sense that low and middle earners don't get a fair share of the wealth that their work  helps to create, while those at the top take much more than they merit or need..

Pascal Soriot, the chief executive of the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, who spent the previous two years as the FTSE 100's highest paid boss was pushed into third place after earning £24.7m...

The High Pay Centre said "excessive spending" on top earners often came at the expense of pay rises for the rest  of the workforce.

The thinktank called for reforms to the pay-setting process, including the full implementation of Labour's employment rights bill, which stipulates that employers must inform workers of their trade union rights. It also called for more workers to have the power to elect directors to company boards, as well as clearer reporting on pay.

"The government now needs to make sure these measures are implemented in full, and supplemented by a real voice for elected worker directors in company boardrooms," Hildyard said.

(Joanna Partridge, The Guardian, 2025)

Cost of living crisis? What crisis? If chief executives are earning on average £4.58 million they must be really suffering. Surely poor old Pascal Soriot, on receiving a meagre £24.7 million, must be crying into his beluga caviar?

A comparison of pay scales is a revelation. 

 Erling Haaland (Manchester City Footballer) £27million a year

Justin Webb Radio 4 presenter £365,000, 

The Prime Minister receives £ 172, 00

A consultant surgeon around £130,00

A nurse £37,000 - 40,000. 

What a topsy-turvy world we live in.