FTSE 100 bosses earn typical UK annual salary in three days – thinktank
By 1pm this afternoon, just a few days into the new year, FTSE 100 bosses will have earned more than the typical UK worker makes in a year, according to new estimates.
The median pay – the midpoint between the lowest and highest pay – for a FTSE 100 boss stood at £3.81m (excluding pensions) in the financial year ending in March 2023, analysis by the High Pay Centre thinktank revealed.
This amounts to approximately £1,170 per hour – assuming the bosses work 12.5 hours a day – which is 109 times the median full-time worker’s wage of £34,963, the thinktank said.
The Trades Union Congress (TUC), which represents 48 member unions, has since criticised the “obscene pay inequality”.
“While working people have been forced to suffer the longest wage squeeze in modern history, City bosses have been allowed to pocket bumper rises and bankers have been given unlimited bonuses,” Paul Nowak, TUC general secretary said.
Mr Nowak called on the government to start working with unions and employers to increase living standards and for the wealthy to be taxed fairly.
Meanwhile, other FTSE 350 executives, including senior executives and bosses outside the biggest 100 firms, will need to work a few more days – until 10 January – to overtake the median UK worker’s pay.
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Top city lawyers working at firms including Clifford Chance and Allen & Overy receive an average yearly salary of £1.92m, surpassing the typical wage by 8 January, according to the analysis.
And everyone in the top 1% of full-time UK workers, earning at least £145,000, will have overtaken the amount by 29 March.
Last year, a cap on bonus payments for bankers was scrapped as part of efforts to make the UK a more attractive place to work.
This means there is no longer a limit on the amount people who work for banks or building societies in Britain can receive in annual payouts.
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FTSE 100 turns 40: What’s next?
“Lobbyists for big business and the financial services industry spent much of 2023 arguing that top earners in Britain aren’t paid enough and that we are too concerned with gaps between the super-rich and everybody else,” Luke Hildyard, director at the High Pay Centre, said.
“They think that economic success is created by a tiny number of people at the top and that everybody else has very little to contribute.
“When politicians listen to these misguided views, it’s unsurprising that we end up with massive inequality, and stagnating living standards for the majority of the population.”
A spokesman for the government said its decision to increase the National Living Wage to £11.44 per hour has given millions in the UK a “historic pay rise”.
“In total since 2010, the annual earnings of a full-time worker on the National Living Wage will have increased by over £10,000, demonstrating how we are delivering for those in work,” a spokesperson said.
The thinktank said it used the most recent pay disclosures in FTSE 100 firms’ annual reports for the analysis, combined with government statistics showing pay levels across the UK economy.
Business
Vivergo: How US-UK trade deal could bring about collapse of huge renewable energy plant in Hull
The smell of yeast still hangs in the air at the Vivergo plant in Hull but the machines have fallen quiet.
More than 100 lorries usually pass through here each day, carrying 3,000 tonnes of wheat. It is milled, fermented and distilled. The final product is bioethanol, a renewable fuel that is then blended into E10 petrol.
This is a vast operation. It took several years to build, with considerable investment, but it is on the verge of closing down. Management and staff are holding out for a last-minute reprieve from the government but time is running out.
It’s been a turbulent journey. The plant was already being annihilated by US rivals, losing about £3m a month. Vivergo and Ensus, based in Teesside, blamed regulations that enable US companies to earn double subsidies.
They were pushing for regulatory change but then a killer blow: The US-UK trade deal, which allows 1.4 billion litres of American ethanol into the UK tariff-free (down from 19%).
“We’ve effectively given the whole of the UK market to the US producers,” said Ben Hackett, managing director at Vivergo.
“If we were to have the same support that the US industry has, if we could use genetically modified crops, we wouldn’t need that tariff. We would be able to compete. If we had the same energy costs. We wouldn’t need those tariffs.”
The government has the weekend to come up with a plan that could keep the business running. If it fails, Vivergo will begin issuing redundancy notices to its 160 staff.
Ben Hackett
It’s a devastating prospect for workers, many of them live in Hull and are nervous about alternative opportunities in the area.
Mike Walsh, a logistics manager who has been working at the plant for 14 years, said: “It’s not a great place to be at the moment. It’s a very well paid, very high-skilled role and they’ve (Vivergo) given everybody an opportunity in an area that doesn’t pay that well…. The jobs market isn’t as good as what people would like. So it does impact the local economy.”
He called on the government to “help us, save us, give this industry a future”.
His colleague Claire Wood, lead productions engineer, said: “I moved here after a career in oil and gas for 10 years, partly because I want to be part of the transition to renewable fuels. I can see so much potential here and it’s absolutely devastating to know that this place might be closed very, very shortly and that all that potential just goes away.”
Thousands more could be affected. Haulage companies may have to lay off truck drivers and farmers could also suffer a blow.
Vivergo makes bioethanol using wheat. That wheat is bought from farms from Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.
Claire Wood
The National Farmers Union has sounded the alarm, saying: “Biofuels are extremely important for the crops sector, and their domestic demand of up to two million tonnes can be very important to balance supply and demand and to produce up to one million tonnes of animal feed as a by-product.”
Another bioproduct is carbon dioxide. The gas can be captured and used to put the fizz in drinks or injected into packaging to preserve food.
If Vivergo and Ensus were to go, Britain would lose as much as 80% of its output of carbon dioxide. Supplies are already tight across Europe, meaning this decision could compound shortages across a range of sectors, from meat-packing to healthcare.
The industry is calling on the government to help. Vivergo says it needs temporary financial support but that the government must create a regulatory and commercial environment in which it can thrive.
It says rules that award double subsidies to companies that use waste product in their bioethanol must be changed. At present, these rules are being used by US companies that make ethanol from Uldr – a by-product of processing corn. They argue this is not a genuine waste product.
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Another option is to grow the market. Industry leaders are calling on ministers to increase the mandated renewable fuel content in petrol from 10% to 15% and for an expansion into aviation fuels. That would allow British companies to carve out a space.
The government has been locked in talks with the company since June.
It said: “We will continue to take proactive steps to address the long-standing challenges it faces and remain committed to a way forward that protects supply chains, jobs and livelihoods.”
However, the time for talking is almost over.
Mr Hackett said he had no idea how the government would respond but he was firm with his stance, saying: “In times of global uncertainty, losing that energy certainty and supply from the UK is a problem.
“I think what they’re missing out on is the future growth agenda. We’re the foundation on which the green industrial strategy can be built. We make bioethanol that today decarbonises transport. Tomorrow it will decarbonise marine. It will decarbonise aviation.”
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