Executive pay at Britain’s largest listed companies has soared to a new record high, with analysis revealing more FTSE 100 firms paid top bosses at least £10 million.
Median chief executive officer pay reached £4.58 million in 2024-2025, a 6.8% increase on the previous year. This unprecedented level of remuneration was highlighted in the High Pay Centre’s latest report.
It marks the fourth year in a row that chief executives have taken home a record amount.
It also means that the average FTSE 100 chief executive is now paid 122 times the median UK full-time worker, according to the research.
There were 13 companies on the index of the UK’s top 100 listed firms paying their chief executives £10 million or more – up from 10 last year.
Among the highest-paid bosses in the UK is pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca’s chief Pascal Soriot, who took home a pay packet worth £14.7 million in 2024.
Peter Dilnot, chief executive of aerospace giant Melrose Industries, earned a bumper £45.5 million last year in pay and bonus awards.
Pay deals worth £200 million for the company’s directors were rejected by shareholders in April.
Meanwhile, Rolls-Royce’s Tufan Erginbilgic took a nearly £10 million reduction in his pay package in 2024, totalling £4.1 million thanks to fewer share awards.
The High Pay Centre also found that, on a mean basis, pay for FTSE executives was £5.91 million in 2024-2025.
This was a surge of 15.4% compared with the previous year, surpassing the previous record of £5.79 million set in 2017-2018.
Nine companies had women chief executives for the entire financial year, with their median pay amounting to £3.27 million.
The think tank said it was calling for “excessive spending on top earners” by leading UK firms to be addressed through reforms to corporate pay-setting rules.
This includes implementing the Government’s Employment Rights Bill with measures ensuring trade unions have reasonable access to workplaces, and new rules requiring companies consistently to disclose the pay of their top earners.
