A £59m pay packet

CEO pay in the FTSE 100 has risen again, the third year that chief executives have clocked a record pay increase.

The figures come with a warning about adopting US pay practices.

The High Pay Centre, a think tank, says median CEO pay rose 6.8% to £4.58m in 2024-25, another moment when records were broken.

According to the High Pay Centre, Melrose paid the highest, with CEO pay of £58.92m, followed by Pearson with £18.91m.

According to the report, the FTSE 100 as a whole spent £1bn on 217 executive roles—an increase on the previous year, which stood at £757m.

The report comes at a time when City figures have celebrated changing the debate on executive pay to encourage higher rewards.

The High Pay Centre’s report says Melrose pay levels may be an outlier, but are also significant.

“There has been a very vocal campaign for UK companies to adopt CEO pay practices more common in America, where top pay awards are typically far larger,” the report says.

“The Melrose pay plan, whereby the CEO claims a proportion of any increase in value of the company, operates on a similar principle, if a smaller scale, than higher profile billion-dollar awards made to the CEOs of US companies such as Tesla and Palantir. It is very possible that the use of these plans will spread across the UK in future.”

Meanwhile, US pay among S&P 500 chief executives rose by 7.7% to a median figure of $19m. The increase was higher than the previous year’s 7.2%.

Eric Hoffman, chief data officer for Farient Advisors, tells the Financial Times: “We’re still seeing executive pay increases above the inflationary rate as well as above typical rank-and-file employees.”

Board cyber strategies

Cybersecurity breaches continue to make headlines. meaning it is a key issue for boards. Watchdogs at the Financial Reporting Council have been pondering the board’s role in cybersecurity.

In a podcast, Maureen Beresford, FRC director of corporate governance and stewardship, says it can mean putting additional people on boards with the right skills. She adds that “this has got to be dealt with as risk and controls should be—as you would deal with any other risk…”.

She says a cyber strategy, as a place to start, “should be part of the thinking of the board, but not that the board directs”. A board “should be comfortable that the organisation has those wings in the plans and be able to seek information from, maybe, the audit committee or, maybe, HR if there are skills gaps on what’s being done to deal with those risks”.