By 1pm today, they will have earned the annual average salary of a full-time worker and by the end of the year they will earn, on average, £3.81million.
The amount earned by FTSE 100 bosses has also increased, by 9.5% since March 2023 compared to a rise of 6% for everyone else.
Other executive workers at FTSE 350 firms earn an average of £1.32m a year, and will need to work until 10 January to earn the average worker’s annual salary.
A partner at a ‘magic circle’ law firm would earn this by 8 January, with an average annual salary of £1.92m, while a partner at one of the ‘big four’ accountancy firms, earning an average of £871,000, would pull down this figure 16 January.
Other big earners in the UK include top bankers, also called ‘material risk takers’, at one of the five FTSE 100 listed banks earning an average of £807,000 who would surpass the average worker’s pay by 16 January.
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The think tank said anyone earning at least £145,000, the top 1% of workers, will have overtaken the average worker’s salary by March 29th.
The data, from the High Pay Centre think tank, comes amid calls for UK CEOs to be paid more.
It said in December 2023, Legal and General Investment Management changed its pay guidelines for executives allowing firms it invests in to offer more generous wages while the London Stock Exchange chief executive has also argued that low CEO wages are a risk to the UK economy.
‘Obscene levels of pay inequality’
TUC general secretary, Paul Nowak, said: “The Conservatives are presiding over – and enabling – obscene levels of 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.
“It doesn’t have to be this way. We need an economy that rewards work – not just wealth.
“That means putting workers on company boards to inject some much-needed common sense into boardrooms. It means taxing wealth fairly. And it means a Government that is willing to work with unions and employers to drive up living standards for all.
“Under the Tories it is one rule for the super-wealthy and one rule for everybody else.”
‘It’s unsurprising we end up with massive inequality’
High Pay Centre director, Luke Hildyard, said: “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.
“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.”
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