'Grotesque extremes' | UK's top CEOs received 16% pay rise, think tank reveals

The CEOs of some of the UK’s largest companies received a 16% pay increase in the last year, the think tank High Pay Centre reveals.

The figures suggest that the average salary of a FTSE 100 CEO hit £3.91m in 2022, up £530,000 (16%) from the previous year – this being the highest annual pay recorded since 2017 for this group.

The research revealed that the average salary of a FTSE 100 CEO was 118 times that of the average salary of a UK worker, £33,000 a year. This compares to chief execs getting paid 108 times more than the average worker in 2021 and 79 times more in 2020, suggesting the gap between regular worker salaries and executive salaries is growing.

Some of the highest earners on the list include AstraZeneca’s CEO Sir Pascal Soriot, who was earning as much as £15.32m in 2022, BAE Systems CEO Charles Woodburn, who earned a comfortable £10.69m, and CRH Chief Executive Albert Manifold, who earned £10.38m last year.