British chief executives’ pay is on track to exceed their employees median earnings by more than before the COVID-19 pandemic as profits and executive bonuses rebound,
According to figures out this morning from the High Pay Unit showed that while cuts to executive pay during the pandemic led to a fall in the median CEO/median employee pay ratio across the FTSE 350,early examinations of more recent disclosures indicate that pay gaps will widen again in 2022.
Across the 69 companies that disclosed pay ratios in Q1 2022, the median CEO/median employee ratio was 63:1. This was nearly double the ratio for the same group of companies in 2021, at 34:1.The research that pay ratios were widest in the retail industry with an average pay ratio of 117:1. Ratios were lowest in media (29:1) and financial services (30:1).
While pay gaps between the CEO and the upper quartile threshold were relatively wide, with a median CEO to upper quartile threshold ratio of 31:1, gaps further down the workforce were far narrower. The median ratio between the upper quartile and lower quartile thresholds (the 75th and 25th percentile points) was slightly under 2:1.
27 companies paid workers in the lower quartile of their pay distribution less than the annualised equivalent of the London Living Wage, while 8 paid less than the equivalent of the Real Living Wage. However, complications with how companies accounted for pandemic-related changes to their workforce in the pay ratio calculations makes comparisons difficult.
