In a stark illustration of Britain's widening pay divide, the chief executives of FTSE 100 companies will have earned more by late morning on Tuesday 6th January 2026 than the average UK worker will make in the entire year.
The Staggering Pay Multiples Revealed
According to calculations by the thinktank the High Pay Centre, the median annual pay packet for a FTSE 100 boss now stands at £4.4 million. This colossal sum is 113 times higher than the £39,039 median annual earnings for a full-time worker in the UK.
This pay ratio means that these top executives will surpass the typical worker's yearly income in less than 29 hours of work. Assuming they started back at work on Friday 2nd January 2026, they would cross this threshold at approximately 11:30am on Tuesday 6th January.
Breaking down the figures further, the median FTSE 100 CEO salary equates to an hourly rate of £1,353.23, or nearly £23 for every minute worked. The High Pay Centre based its analysis on an assumption that these executives work around 62.5 hours per week.
Top Earners and Union Backlash
The report highlights specific high fliers from the previous year. The current and former chief executives of engineering firm Melrose Industries, Peter Dilnot and Simon Peckham, were the highest paid, taking home close to £59 million combined, largely from long-term incentive plans.
Pascal Soriot of pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, who had been the highest-paid FTSE 100 boss for the two prior years, was pushed into third place with earnings of £14.7 million.
Reacting to the figures, Paul Nowak, General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), condemned the disparity. "While millions of low- and middle-income workers are still struggling with the cost of living, those at the very top keep helping themselves to a huge slice of the pie," he said. Nowak urged the government to "act to rein in boardroom greed" by mandating worker representation on executive pay committees.
Calls for Reform and Corporate Defence
The High Pay Centre linked the growing chasm in part to declining trade union membership. It noted that the new Labour government's Employment Rights Act, passed in December, could begin to address the imbalance. The act will grant unions reasonable access to workplaces and require employers to inform new staff of their right to join.
Andrew Speke, the interim director of the High Pay Centre, argued the figures expose an unsustainable valuation of work. "The idea that executives, as a class, are individually contributing over 100 times more in value than the workers they rely on is simply not credible," he stated.
Speke called for the new employment law to be accompanied by bolder corporate governance reform, including democratic worker representation on all major company boards. He also advocated for higher taxes on companies paying "excessive sums" to top earners, with proceeds invested in education and social mobility.
This perspective is frequently contested in corporate boardrooms. Many chairs and remuneration committees argue that top executives earn their vast rewards and that such pay is necessary to attract and retain the best global talent, particularly to compete with higher-paying US rivals. In 2023, the head of the London Stock Exchange publicly stated that British companies should pay bosses more for this reason.
The scale of internal company inequality is even more pronounced. Last year, the High Pay Centre found the median pay of FTSE 100 CEOs was 78 times that of their own median employee. When compared with the pay of the lowest-earning quartile within their own companies, the multiple rose sharply to 106.
