CEOs paid 183 times more than average worker

Pension-Money-Dreamstime-2013

Chief executive officers (CEOs) currently earn around 183 times more than the average worker in the UK, according to research by The High Pay Centre.

The research, which compared disclosed FTSE 100 executive pay recorded by organisations in their annual reports, also found that FTSE 100 CEO pay reached £4.964 million in 2014, compared to £4.923 million in 2013.

The study also found:

  • The top 10 highest-paid CEOs alone were paid over £156 million between them.
  • Despite average CEO pay of nearly £5 million, only a quarter of FTSE 100 organisations are living wage accredited.
  • The average vote from business shareholders against pay awards across the FTSE 100 was just 6.4%.

Deborah Hargreaves, director of The High Pay Centre, said: “Pay packages of this size go far beyond what is sensible or necessary to reward and inspire top executives. It’s more likely that corporate governance structures in the UK are riddled with glaring weaknesses and conflicts of interest.

“The coalition government introduced some welcome reforms in 2013 that have enabled us to get a better understanding of the executive pay racket. However it’s clear that these reforms didn’t do nearly enough to start building a pay culture where everybody is rewarded fairly and proportionally for the work that they do.”

This follows the news that public employers in the US will have to disclose the difference in pay between the chief executive officer and the median compensation received by other employees from January 2017.

Unequal pay will be one of the topics on the agenda at Employee Benefits Live 2015, taking place on 21-22 September at Olympia National, London. Duncan Brown, head of HR consultancy at the Institute for Employment Studies, will be delivering a keynote presentation on the gender pay gap reporting regulations and unequal pay audits.