FTSE 100 bosses will have earned more in the first few days of 2024 than the average UK worker earns in a year.
By lunchtime today, the salaries of chief executive officers leading the one hundred companies listed on the index will surpass the median full-time annual salary in the UK.
That is according to calculations by the High Pay Centre, a think tank based in the UK, which examined data from company filings alongside government pay data.
The think tank said that, due to increases in CEO pay among the FTSE 100 companies, these executives will have to work one hour less than they did last year to earn more than a year’s average pay.
Median FTSE 100 CEO pay, excluding pensions, currently stands at £3.81 million, 109 times the median full-time worker’s pay of £34,963.
This represents a 9.5% increase on median CEO pay levels in March 2023. Median workers' pay has meanwhile increased at a slower rate of 6% since last March.
The study suggests that the earnings of CEOs at FTSE 100 companies outstrip even top lawyers and banker salaries.
It will not be until the start of next week when top city lawyers will also have out-earned the average UK worker’s salary for a year, by the think tank’s estimates.
Meanwhile, banker earnings won’t have reached the average yearly salary until 17 January.
A partner at a ‘magic circle’ law firm with an average pay of £1.92 million would out-earn the average yearly salary by 8 January.
A top banker at one of the five FTSE 100 listed banks, with an average pay of £807,000, would need to work until 16 January to out-earn the average salary in a year.
Meanwhile, the highest 1% of full-time UK earners, who make at least £145,000 a year, will all have overtaken the annual pay of the median full-time worker by 29 March.
The latest pay analysis, which shows FTSE 100 CEO salaries are rising at a faster rate than average pay, comes amid calls to pay listed company bosses even more.
Last year, London Stock Exchange’s chief executive Julia Hoggett argued that low CEO pay levels create a risk to the UK economy.
In December, the asset management business of Legal and General adjusted executive pay guidelines to permit firms they invest in to offer more generous incentive payments.
As with last year, the latest executive pay data suggests that CEOs will out-earn the annual pay of the median worker by the third working day of 2024.
High Pay Centre director Luke Hildyard said: "Lobbyists for big business and the financial services industry spent much of 2023 arguing that top earners in Britain aren’t paid enough and that we are too concerned with gaps between the super-rich and everybody else.
"They think that economic success is created by a tiny number of people at the top and that everybody else has very little to contribute.
“When politicians listen to these misguided views, it’s unsurprising that we end up with massive inequality, and stagnating living standards for the majority of the population."
The High Pay Centre said the calculations are based on its analysis of the most recent CEO pay disclosures published in companies’ annual reports, combined with government statistics showing pay levels across the UK economy.