Bosses at Britain’s biggest companies have hit average annual pay this year, according to new research, with top CEOs earning tens of thousands of pounds before the third working day in 2023.
According to calculations published on Thursday by the High Pay Centre, a London-based thinktank that campaigns for pay equality, the average CEO pay at a FTSE 100 company—based on an analysis of the latest CEO pay disclosures and government wage statistics—is now at £3.41 million ($4.1 million).
That’s 103 times the average full-time worker’s annual salary of £33,000 ($39,620).
London’s FTSE 100 index includes the largest companies listed in London by market capitalization, including Rio Tinto, HSBC, Vodafone and Shell.
Thursday’s report also found that while average FTSE 100 CEO pay has risen by 39% since January last year, average worker pay has risen by 6% over the same period. The UK’s latest annual inflation reading, for November, was 10.7%, with the consumer price index hovering above or near 10% in 2022.
The High Pay Centre’s findings mean that by 2pm in London (9am ET) on Thursday, the average CEO’s earnings will exceed the average annual salary for full-time British workers.
As January 2nd is a public holiday, it means that the mark will be reached before the third working day in the UK in 2023.
This year, the milestone will be reached nine working hours earlier than in 2022, according to the organization’s analysis.
The phenomenon is not unique to England.
Bosses at France’s most prominent public companies will also receive the average annual salary of French employees on Thursday, according to Oxfamwhile chief executives in countries from the US to Sweden also get the average annual income of workers in a few days.
In the UK, it’s not just CEOs who will make the average annual salary in a few days this year, the High Pay Center report shows.
A partner at London’s most prestigious law firm, whose average salary is £1.95 million ($2.3 million), will earn £33,000 on January 9, the thinktank said, while a top banker at one of the five banks in the FTSE 100 will have been achieved on January 17th.
Cost of living crisis
While inflation has hit many western states, the UK has been hit hard – and economists believe things will get worse for the UK, warning that the country will face a “deeper and longer recession” than the rest of the G7. .
Britain is currently facing its worst cost of living crisis in decades, with inflation hitting a 41-year high while a shrinking economy sees the country end 2022 on the brink of recession.
In addition to an ongoing energy crisis that has pushed millions of UK households into “fuel poverty,” the country’s food price inflation hit a record high by the end of 2022, while real wages fell to record levels as inflation continues to plague the UK. “purchasing power of the district.
The ongoing pressure has led to widespread labor strikes across the country, with train and bus drivers, teachers, driving test examiners, nurses and ambulance drivers set to strike in various parts of the UK in January, following weeks of union action. by the end of 2022.
‘Little public support’ for high CEO pay
In a statement on Thursday, Director of the Center for High Pay Luke Hildyard said measures needed to make income distribution more equal so that living standards in the UK could be improved.
“In the worst economic situation that most people can remember, it is hard to believe that a handful of top earners are still raking in such an extraordinary amount of money,” he said.
“The British economy is simply unable to allocate a large part of the wealth created by all workers to be held by a few at the top.”
Meanwhile, Jo Wittams, executive director of the British charity Equality Trust, said fortune there is research by his organization showing that 70% of Brits support government regulation of CEO pay.
“It’s easy to portray this as a reward for hard work, but the reward is unbalanced. CEOs and shareholders benefit from record profits, while workers are forced to take real pay cuts, even as productivity increases,” he said.
“Companies need to be aware of the broader economic context in which they operate — recognizing that with decades of wage stagnation for workers coupled with inflation reaching a 40-year high, there is little public support for increasing executive pay.”
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