Britain’s 10 highest-paid FTSE 100 chief executives received £130.37 million between them during the latest annual-report cycle, according to Finance Gazette calculations.
That means just 10 executives collected 23.7% of the £550.4 million paid to the 94 chief executives covered by the High Pay Centre’s 2026 analysis.
Sir Pascal Soriot of AstraZeneca led the ranking with total remuneration of £17.696 million. Former GSK chief executive Dame Emma Walmsley was second, followed by Barclays boss C.S. Venkatakrishnan. Both received more than £15 million.
Across the wider index, median chief executive remuneration reached a record £5.06 million. That was 8.6% higher than the previous year’s £4.66 million and marked the fourth consecutive annual increase.
These figures are not simply salaries. They measure total remuneration, which can include fixed pay, pension contributions, benefits, annual bonuses and the value of long-term share awards vesting during the year.
| Rank | Company | Chief executive during reporting year | Total remuneration |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | AstraZeneca | Sir Pascal Soriot | £17.696m |
| 2 | GSK | Dame Emma Walmsley | £15.681m |
| 3 | Barclays | C.S. Venkatakrishnan | £15.045m |
| 4 | Shell | Wael Sawan | £13.756m |
| 5 | Standard Chartered | Bill Winters | £12.694m |
| 6 | BAE Systems | Charles Woodburn | £12.397m |
| 7 | RELX | Erik Engstrom | £11.436m |
| 8 | Tesco | Ken Murphy | £10.842m |
| 9 | Compass Group | Dominic Blakemore | £10.508m |
| 10 | InterContinental Hotels Group | Elie Maalouf | £10.317m |
Source: High Pay Centre, CEO Pay Report 2026. Figures represent the statutory single total figure of remuneration and were converted into sterling where necessary. The executives named are those whose remuneration was recorded for the reporting year and are not necessarily the companies’ current chief executives.
Together, the 10 packages were worth precisely £130.372 million. Finance Gazette’s analysis shows that they accounted for 23.7% of total chief executive remuneration across the 94-company sample.
The upper end of the market is not defined by a single exceptional award. Eleven FTSE 100 companies paid their chief executives more than £10 million, while 50 reported packages of between £4 million and £10 million.
Healthcare produced the two largest awards. Soriot’s £17.696 million package at AstraZeneca was followed by the £15.681 million attributed to Walmsley during her final full financial year leading GSK.
Banking also featured prominently. Barclays and Standard Chartered occupied third and fifth place respectively, while energy, defence, publishing, retail, catering and hotels were all represented in the top 10.
Pay increases extended well beyond the highest earners. Chief executive remuneration rose at 66 of the 94 companies examined—70% of the sample—compared with 61% in the previous report.
That distinction matters. One unusually large award can distort an average, but the median identifies the midpoint of the sample. Its rise to £5.06 million therefore indicates a broader increase in boardroom rewards.
| Measure | Latest figure |
|---|---|
| Median CEO remuneration | £5.06m |
| Mean CEO remuneration | £5.89m |
| Increase in median remuneration | 8.6% |
| Total paid to CEOs | £550.4m |
| Total paid to all executive directors | £856.6m |
| Companies paying more than £10m | 11 |
| Companies where CEO pay increased | 66 of 94 |
| Median CEO-to-UK-worker pay multiple | 130:1 |
| Top 10 share of total CEO remuneration | 23.7% |
Mean chief executive remuneration fell from £6.09 million to £5.89 million, even as the median increased. The apparent contradiction is explained largely by an exceptional £58.93 million award recorded at Melrose Industries in the previous year.
When Melrose is removed from both annual samples, mean chief executive pay increased by 6.5%, from £5.53 million to £5.89 million.
The median is therefore the better indication of the underlying direction of travel. It is less affected by an unusually large individual award and shows that executive remuneration rose across much of the FTSE 100.
A chief executive’s salary is only one component of the amount reported to shareholders. Across the companies studied, salary represented an average of 18% of total remuneration.
Long-term incentive plans, commonly known as LTIPs, accounted for 45%. When annual bonuses and LTIP awards were combined, performance-related incentives represented 76% of the average package.
The mean LTIP payment increased by 20%, from £2.258 million to £2.709 million. The mean short-term incentive payment rose by 14%, from £1.614 million to £1.843 million.
Some 97% of the chief executives covered received a short-term incentive payment, while 80% recorded an LTIP award in their single remuneration figure.
This explains why reports referring only to a chief executive’s “salary” can be misleading. An executive with fixed pay of £1 million may ultimately receive several times that amount after bonuses, benefits and vested shares are included.
Long-term incentives are generally awarded several years before they vest. Their eventual value depends on whether performance conditions have been satisfied and what has happened to the company’s share price.
A rising share price can substantially increase the reported value of an award, even when the original number of shares was fixed years earlier. Conversely, missed targets or a falling share price can sharply reduce the amount received.
This produces remuneration packages that may change by millions of pounds from one year to the next.
It also means that a large single-year figure does not necessarily represent cash paid directly into an executive’s bank account during that year. Part of the award may be delivered in shares, deferred, retained to satisfy ownership requirements or made subject to malus and clawback provisions.
The single figure should therefore be understood as a standardised reporting measure, rather than annual salary or immediately spendable income.
Median FTSE 100 chief executive remuneration of £5.06 million was 130 times the £39,039 annual pay of the median UK full-time worker used in the High Pay Centre’s comparison.
That was the widest gap recorded in eight years, up from a multiple of 124 in the previous reporting cycle.
Expressed another way, a chief executive receiving the median package earned the equivalent of the typical full-time worker’s annual pay in approximately two working days.
The comparison is not completely like-for-like because executive remuneration contains deferred and share-based awards, while the national earnings figure principally measures cash pay. Nevertheless, it demonstrates the scale of the difference.
Pay gaps within individual companies can also vary considerably. Retailers, hospitality businesses and catering groups employing large numbers of lower-paid workers will normally produce different ratios from banks or mining companies with more highly paid workforces.
International workforces, outsourcing and changes in employee composition can also affect the calculation. A company’s pay ratio is therefore most informative when tracked over several years rather than treated as a standalone league-table score.
Boards frequently argue that major UK-listed companies compete internationally for senior executives. Businesses with substantial operations in the United States increasingly compare their remuneration arrangements with those offered by American competitors, where executive packages are often considerably larger.
Investors sometimes accept higher potential awards when they are tied to demanding growth, profit or shareholder-return targets. At other companies, proposed increases have encountered substantial shareholder opposition.
The debate is not simply about the size of an executive’s salary. It also concerns the structure of incentive schemes, the difficulty of their targets and whether the rewards ultimately reflect the value delivered to shareholders.
Because incentives account for more than three-quarters of average FTSE 100 chief executive remuneration, decisions made by remuneration committees can have a much greater effect than changes to fixed salary.
UK-listed companies must publish a standardised total for each director in their annual remuneration report. This is commonly described as the single total figure of remuneration.
It normally includes:
It is intended to make comparisons between directors and companies easier. However, readers should still examine the accompanying notes because reporting periods, incentive arrangements and vesting calculations can differ.
Where a company changed chief executive during the financial year, the High Pay Centre combined the single figures for everyone who held the role. This maintains a consistent company-level comparison, but it can include departure payments or other one-off costs associated with a leadership transition.
This article uses the High Pay Centre’s CEO Pay Report 2026, published in July 2026.
The underlying population was the FTSE 100 as constituted in June 2026. The remuneration figures came from company annual reports covering financial years ending between 1 April 2025 and 31 March 2026.
Six externally managed investment trusts were excluded because they did not employ a directly comparable chief executive:
The resulting sample contained 94 companies.
For companies reporting in currencies other than sterling, the High Pay Centre converted the remuneration figures using the relevant HMRC spot exchange rate closest to the company’s financial year-end.
The use of “2026” in this article refers to the publication and reporting cycle. It should not be interpreted as remuneration earned solely between January and December 2026.
The FTSE 100 itself also changes over time. LSEG confirmed that EasyJet and Ithaca Energy will enter the index, replacing Entain and Persimmon. Those changes will be implemented after the close of business on 18 September 2026 and take effect when trading begins on 21 September.
They do not alter the June 2026 population used for the High Pay Centre’s research.
Sir Pascal Soriot of AstraZeneca headed the 2026 ranking with total remuneration of £17.696 million.
Median FTSE 100 chief executive remuneration was £5.06 million. The mean was £5.89 million.
The median is generally more representative because it is less affected by exceptionally large individual awards.
The 10 largest packages were worth a combined £130.372 million, according to Finance Gazette calculations. They accounted for 23.7% of the £550.4 million paid to all chief executives in the study.
Eleven companies reported chief executive remuneration exceeding £10 million. The publicly available report identifies the 10 largest individual packages.
No. Salary accounted for an average of only 18% of total remuneration. The single figure may also include benefits, pension contributions, annual bonuses and long-term share awards.
Six externally managed investment trusts did not employ a directly comparable chief executive and were excluded from the analysis.
Not exactly. The report covers company financial years ending between 1 April 2025 and 31 March 2026. The year in the headline identifies the report edition and publication cycle.
