The High Pay Centre think tank has analysed the pay of chief executives of the FTSE 100 companies and found that on average it is now 131 times the average wage of their employees, compared with 41 times in 1998.
Then chief executive pay averaged £1 million a year. It’s £5 million now. With an annual “package” of almost £30 million, the head of advertising firm WPP is paid 780 times as much as the average worker. The chief executive of G4S, beneficiary of much government outsourcing and object of criticism over performance, receives a yearly remuneration of £2 million, 266 times the average pay within the company.
At state-controlled Network Rail some individual bonuses have reached £350,000 while punctuality targets have been missed and poor safety standards at level crossings have resulted in several deaths.