Six in 10 people think top UK company CEOs should be paid no more than 10 times the salary of their typical employee, a think tank has found.
The High Pay Centre found strong disapproval of current pay ratios and appetite for CEO pay restraint. The median pay ratio between a FTSE 350 CEO and their average full-time employee was 53:1 in 2020, with 21% of companies paying their CEO more than 100 times their median employee.
Asked how much they thought the CEOs of the UK’s biggest businesses should be paid compared to their lower- and mid-level employees, 62% said no more than 10 times would be appropriate.
Twenty-nine per cent felt between one and five times would be acceptable. Just 3% felt they should be paid over 50 times their average employee.
Almost half (48%) felt businesses behaved in ways that were generaly harmful of society. Asked why they felt this, 71% cited tax evasion or avoidance, 67% said poor pay and conditions for employees, and 63% said because of the proportion of profits or income taken by executives and investors.
Fifty-three per cent said policies that share wealth more evenly would be much more likely than those aimed at lifting economic growth (34%) to raise incomes and living standards for middle and bottom earners. Forty-nine per cent felt that living standards were determined by the way resources are distributed rather than the headline growth rate (34%).
CEO pay restraint
Firms with female directors most likely to cut pandemic executive pay
Executive pay: financial incentives damage long-term profits
The High Pay Centre said: “In practice, it has historically been a mixture of growth, through innovations and advancement in technology or medicine for example, and measures such as trade unions, progressive taxation and minimum wages ensuring that the proceeds of growth are shared fairly, that have raised living standards. It is also perfectly feasible for measures designed to share incomes and wealth more evenly to also result in greater economic growth.
Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance
Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday
“But it is very hard to imagine any mainstream politician or commentator dedicating to fairer wealth redistribution anything like the energy that they expend in search of greater economic growth.”
Reward, compensation and benefits opportunities
Browse all comp and benefits jobs
