Bosses earn 131 times more than staff

Senior leaders of top 100 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange are earning significantly more money than respective employees, highlighting the growing pay gap between bosses and workers in Britain.

According to analysis released today by the High Pay Centre think-tank, chief executive officers (CEOs) of FTSE 100 companies in Britain are now paid around 131 times their average employee.

The figure points to a dramatic rise in executive pay in relation to most UK workers over the past three decades; the report highlighted in 1998, the average FTSE 100 CEO was paid 47 times their average employee. In 1980, analysis of six major UK companies found CEOs were paid between 13 and 44 times their average employee.

“While government figures confirm that wages for ordinary workers keep falling, it’s clear that not everyone is feeling the pain,” Deborah Hargreaves, High Pay Centre director, said.

“When bosses make hundreds of times as much money as the rest of the workforce, it creates a deep sense of unfairness.”

According to the report, WPP's CEO Martin Sorrell (pictured) took home a pay package nearly 800 times bigger than his employees in 2013, while Next's boss Lord Wolfson was awarded pay worth 459 times as much as his average employee.

Read more: What the world's 10 wealthiest CEOs earn

The pay ratio was found to be highest at catering group Compass, where CEO Richard Cousins made 418 times as much as the average employee.

“Britain’s executives haven’t got so much better over the past two decades,” Hargreaves said.

“The only reason why their pay has increased so rapidly compared to their employees is that they are able to get away with it. The government needs to take more radical action on top pay to deliver a fair economy that ordinary people can have faith in.”

Also read: Highest paid CEOs are the worst performers

Image copyright by World Economic Forum/Photo by Sebastian Derungs