Average earnings of top company executives are almost 100 times more than a typical employee, research by Incomes Data Services (IDS) suggest.
Ten years ago, the pay differential was 39 times that of the average worker.
Last year, FTSE 100 chief executives saw their pay rise, on average, 43% to £2.9m – just £730,000 of which was made up by salary. The rest is made up of bonuses, share options and added perks.
Sir Martin Sorrell, head of advertising firm WPP, is the highest paid, earning £17.1m in total remuneration in the year to July, according to the Directors’ Pay Report.
Earnings of FTSE 100 chief executives had leapt up by 102.2% since 2000, while the average employee had seen their pay increase by 28.6% during that period, the report found.
Brendan Barber, TUC general secretary, said the huge rise in executive pay was “more about greed than performance”.
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“The stratospheric levels of directors’ pay compared to average wages mean that executives now live in a class apart, even from employees in their own companies,” he said. “It is not just socially divisive, but bad for the economy.”
