It's the third working day of 2025 - and some CEOs have already made the average worker's yearly salary

Some of the bosses of FTSE 100 companies will have made more money than the average worker will earn for the year by midday on the third working day of 2025, a study has found.

According to the campaign group the High Pay Centre, at around 11:30am today (Monday 6 January), the chief executives of some of the biggest companies will have made the equivalent of the UK’s median yearly salary of £37,430, taking them just 29 hours to do so, if they resumed work on the first working day after the new year.

The study suggests they will have had a median hourly pay of £1,298.46 – almost £22 per minute.

The milestone has been reached marginally quicker than last year when the UK median annual salary was reached by FTSE 100 bosses at 1pm on the third working day of the year.

High Pay Centre’s annual study aims to highlight the disparity in the pay for bosses and staff, as the level of pay for bosses hit record levels. While the pay for workers rose by 7 per cent last year, the pay for CEOs also rose 2.5 per cent, on average. The disparity has prompted calls for action.

Paul Nowak, general secretary of the union group Trades Union Congress, said: “Every working person plays a part in producing Britain’s wealth. But while millions of low-paid workers are still feeling the effects of the cost of living crisis, people at the top are taking more than their fair share.”

Some of the highest-earning FTSE 100 CEOs in recent years include AstraZeneca’s Pascal Soriot, who received £18.7m in 2024. Elsewhere, the CEO of RelX, Erik Engstrom, and the CEO of Rolls-Royce, Tufan Erginbilgiç, both received £13.6m.

“A feeling that the economy works for the enrichment of a tiny elite at the expense of wider society is an underrated cause of populist anger and support for extremist politics,” Luke Hildyard, director of the High Pay Centre, argued.

“Policymakers who fail to address this inequality are storing up some big problems for the future.”

Sign up for our free indy100 weekly newsletter

How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings