The bosses of Britain’s biggest companies took home record pay for the third year running, a new report has revealed.
Median pay for a FTSE-100 chief executive rose by 6.8% to £4.58m in 2024-2025 – up from £4.29m the year before – research by think tank High Pay Centre found.
It means the average FTSE boss was paid 122 times the salary of the average UK full-time worker.
The think tank, which campaigns for fairer pay, found that FTSE firms spent £1bn on the pay of just 217 executive roles – an increase from £757m a year earlier. Much of this increase reflected executive pay awards at aerospace giant Melrose Industries, where bosses were paid £212m.
Melrose’s current chief, former army helicopter pilot Peter Dilnot, and his predecessor (Simon Peckham), took home nearly £59m between them.
Andrew Speke, Paddy Goffey and Luke Hildyard, who co-authored the report, wrote: “It does not necessarily follow that all high earners are overpaid and that their income should be re-directed to those in the middle and at the bottom.
“But the way we value work, set pay and run businesses has major implications for living standards meaning that these topics should be debated on an ongoing basis.”
The report found the number of FTSE firms paying chief executives £10m or more increased by 30% to 13 companies for the year. A total of 84% of businesses also paid a so-called long term incentive payment – a type of compensation for senior executives – to their CEO over the period.
The gender divide within the FTSE was also highlighted by the High Pay Centre, with the 10 female chief executives who served on a FTSE board over the last year earning less than their male counterparts.
