The average yearly CEO pay packet increased 18% among the 55 members of the FTSE 100 who have so far published their annual reports.

According to Deloitte, median chief executive pay increased from £5.01m to £5.89m. The pay rises follow a year in which there was an 88% increase in shareholder revolts over pay in the UK’s largest companies.

Despite the increased opposition, Mitul Shah, partner in Deloitte’s remuneration practice, says pay has been increased to “retain and attract” the best executive talent in an “increasingly competitive global market”.

Higher pay has come, in many cases, along with an increase in the “stretch” of performance targets and a shift in balance to financial metrics.

And it has also come with the backing of many investors. Shah says: “Over the last two AGM seasons we have seen investors be more willing to hear companies make their case and to support their proposals based on individual company circumstance, particularly where the increases are linked to stretching targets that need to be achieved to deliver the payouts.

“We expect this trend to continue into the upcoming AGM season.”

‘A coherent rationale’

There has been much talk of increasing pay levels this season, though some observers have warned remuneration committees they would need to argue their case.

In a letter to the Financial Times earlier this year, Bernadette Young, director of governance adviser Indigo, wrote that boards would need to “justify any decisions to supersize executive pay with a coherent rationale to avoid a repeat of last year when shareholder revolts (20% or more) against pay deals among FTSE 100 companies doubled.”

A think tank, the High Pay Centre, estimated that the average FTSE 100 CEO earned the UK’s average salary by 6 January this year.

In October, at the request of the government, the Investment Association ceased to update the Public Register, a publicly available list of the companies that had suffered shareholder revolts against issues such as pay.

Last year, the High Pay Centre, along with the Equality Trust, launched a campaign for a maximum 10:1 pay ratio for CEO to their lowest paid worker.

In a statement for the petition, the High Pay Centre said polling suggested the public was behind the idea.

“Specifically, we are urging Government to ensure that no company can pay its highest-earning employee more than 10 times the salary of its lowest paid worker.”