The High Pay Centre estimates that FTSE 100 CEOs’ earnings for 2025 will surpass the median UK worker’s full time annual salary today, just before midday on Monday 6 January
FTSE 100 bosses’ will have to work two hours more to overtake UK median worker than they did in 2024
Calculations based on most recent available figures for CEOs and other top professions, plus Government data on UK workers’ pay.
The median FTSE 100 CEO’s earnings for 2025 will surpass the median annual salary for a full-time worker in the UK by around midday on Monday 6 January, according to HPC calculations.
The calculations are based on HPC’s analysis of the most recent CEO pay disclosures published in companies’ annual reports, combined with government statistics showing pay levels across the UK economy.
As with last year, the executive pay data suggests that CEOs will have to work less than three days of 2025 to surpass the annual pay of the median worker.
Median FTSE 100 CEO pay (excluding pension) currently stands at £4.22 million, 113 times the median full time worker’s pay of £37,430. This represents a 2.5% increase on median CEO pay levels in the past year, while the median worker’s pay has increased by 7%.
In October, the new Government introduced an Employment Rights Bill, including measures promising to give trade unions reasonable access to workplaces to speak to workers and requiring employers to inform new employees of their right to join a union. The decline in trade union membership is widely recognised to have been a key factor in rising CEO to worker pay gaps and widening inequality that has occurred in the UK and across other Western countries since the 1980s.
HPC’s Charter for Fair Pay, published last Autumn called for effective implementation of the Employment Rights Bill as well as further measures giving workers more of a voice in the running of companies.