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Thursday 18 November 2021 1:59 pm

By far best-paid in Europe: CEOs in UK make 759 per cent more than their employees

By: Michiel Willems

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Chief executives in the UK are on average 759 per cent more than their employees, making the wage gap in Britain the biggest in all major economies.

Business leaders in the UK also get paid more than anywhere else in the world, after the United States.

On average, CEOs are paid £300,312, whereas the median employee pay is £34,943, creating a wage gap of 759 per cent.

Only in Greece the difference was higher, with Italy, Germany and France rounding out the top five countries, with wage gaps of 703 per cent, 622 per cent and 604 per cent respectively, according to data from careers board Lensa, shared with Morning Wire this afternoon.

Chief executive pay scrutinised

We have all heard of the gender pay gap, but what about the CEO wage gap?

The vast sums that CEOs are paid frequently make headlines around the world, often provoking an uproar at the disparity in pay between workers and their high-earning bosses.

Regardless of whether you celebrate the success of the lucky few who reach these top-earning positions, or take issue with the inequality that such salaries represent, high CEO pay is a fact of the working world we live in.

However, not all companies, or CEOs, are made equal, with the amounts that they and their employees earn changing from company to company, and even from country to country. 

Having such a disproportionate pay scale between the CEO and average employee can be counterproductive, demotivating workers who might feel disgruntled or not fairly compensated for the work they do.

On the flip side, a smaller CEO pay gap signals that a company values all of its employees and is willing to pay them for their work without overly inflating executives’ pay.

To help put these differences into perspective, Lensa compared CEO and employee salaries across a range of countries, adding context to the CEO wage gap here in the UK.

Read more

Public sector makes wage growth higher than expected

London has defied national trends as job postings in the capital rose.

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