The High Pay Centre, a think tank, has kicked off this year’s segment in the ongoing debate over chief executive pay. Its annual note points out that the average FSTE 100 CEO will accumulate the UK’s average annual salary at about noon today, just six days into the new year.

The figure is almost exactly the same as last year’s, with the High Pay Centre calculating that the average top 100 CEO is earning 113 times the average full-time worker salary of £39,039. The figures come amid ongoing calls for an upward adjustment in CEO and non-executive pay.

High Pay Centre director Andrew Speke says: “The figures out today once again emphasise the huge gap in how the work of most people is valued, compared with a small number of feted executives.

“The idea that executives, as a class, are individually contributing over 100 time more in value that the workers they rely on is simply not credible.”

The High Pay Centre has called for governance reforms so that a worker representative is present on all major company boards and higher rates of tax for staff earning “excessive sums”.

In December, research from Alvarez & Marsal concluded non-executive pay had gone through a 10% drop over the past decade, in real terms, suggesting the need for a “reset”.

Last year also saw watchdogs at the Financial Reporting Council confirm that non-executives could be partly paid in shares. Alvarez & Marsal said in its release that shares would not be enough, because overall “quantum” was the “elephant in the room”.

Shareholder dissatisfaction

Meanwhile, investors are not entirely happy with rising pay levels. Shareholder revolts against rising pay levels elsewhere were found to be increasing across Europe, according to Georgeson, an advisory firm.

Chief executive Cas Sydorowitz said: “Investors appear increasingly willing to challenge executive pay through a more confrontational and disruptive approach by opposing companies’ binding remuneration policy resolution framework.

“By voting ‘against’ such resolutions, investors directly challenge future executive compensation structures, which can also include long-term incentive plans.”

In November last year, Julia Hoggett, chief executive of the London Stock Exchange, noted that remuneration committees were feeling safety in numbers when proposing big pay increases for their executives.

“If one of your children is on the naughty step it is a naughty step, but if all your children are on the naughty step, it is a play date,” she told a Financial Times conference.

The High Pay Centre’s figures show that pay will continue to be a hotly contested issue in the coming year—just like the last. The real question many will be asking is whether it will help to grow the UK economy. That remains to be seen.