The median FTSE 100 CEO’s earnings for 2025 will surpass the median annual salary for a full-time worker in the UK by around midday on Monday 6 January, according to calculations by the High Pay Centre think tank.
The calculations are based on the High Pay Centre’s analysis of the most recent CEO pay disclosures published in companies’ annual reports, combined with government statistics showing pay levels across the UK economy.
As with last year, the executive pay data suggests that CEOs will have to work less than three days of 2025 to surpass the annual pay of the median worker.
FTSE 100 bosses raking it in for another year
Median FTSE 100 CEO pay (excluding pension) currently stands at £4.22 million, 113 times the median full time worker’s pay of £37,430. This represents a 2.5% increase on median CEO pay levels in the past year, while the median worker’s pay has increased by 7%.
The High Pay Centre’s calculations have assumed that CEOs work 62.5 hours a week, based on a study from the US by Harvard Business School. This equates to 12.5 hours a day. Discounting weekends and bank holidays in England and Wales, this equates to hourly pay of £1,298.46 per hour on the basis of £4.22m annual pay
This means that CEOs would surpass the £37,430 median earnings for a full-time worker in the UK in a little under 29 hours.
In October 2024, the new government introduced an Employment Rights Bill, including measures promising to give trade unions reasonable access to workplaces to speak to workers and requiring employers to inform new employees of their right to join a union.
The decline in trade union membership is widely recognised to have been a key factor in rising CEO to worker pay gaps and widening inequality that has occurred in the UK and across other Western countries since the 1980s.
The High Pay Centre’s Charter for Fair Pay, published last Autumn, called for effective implementation of the Employment Rights Bill as well as further measures giving workers more of a voice in the running of companies.
Labour must do more
High Pay Centre director Luke Hildyard said:
A feeling that the economy works for the enrichment of a tiny elite at the expense of wider society is an underrated cause of populist anger and support for extremist politics. Policymakers who fail to address this inequality are storing up some big problems for the future.
Reforms introduced by the new Government enabling trade unions to reach more workers should help ordinary employees win a fairer share of income that is currently captured by super-rich executives and investors.
He also noted that the Labour Party government should go further:
Bolder measures like representation for elected worker directors on company boards and caps on executive pay would do more to ensure that the wealth generated by the UK economy is shared across the country in a way that’s sensible, sustainable and proportionate.
Featured image via the Canary
