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London's biggest bosses now earn 164 times local pay. In 1980 it was 14

In 2011 the High Pay Commission showed how far boardroom pay at BP, Barclays, Lloyds and Reed had pulled away since 1980. London Business Daily has rerun the comparison with the companies' 2025 annual reports and the earnings figures ONS published last week: against a typical London full-time worker, the gap is now about 11 times wider than it was in 1980.

London Business Daily Source: High Pay Commission, Cheques With Balances, final report (November 2011), Tables 1 and 2

The chief executives of four of London’s biggest companies were paid an average of £9.8 million each for 2025, about 164 times the median pay of a full-time man working in London. In 1979/80 the top directors of the same four companies earned an average of £96,302, about 14 times the London median at the time.

The comparison, by London Business Daily, uses earnings figures published by the Office for National Statistics on 22 October 2026 and the four companies’ 2025 annual reports, published in February and March this year.

Where the 1980 figures come from

In November 2011 the High Pay Commission, an independent inquiry into top pay chaired by the former Guardian business editor Deborah Hargreaves, published its final report, Cheques With Balances. Its tables, compiled by Incomes Data Services, set the pay of a director at six companies in 1979/80 against the lead executive’s earnings in 2009 to 2011. Four of those companies are still listed and run from London: BP, Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group and Reed Elsevier, now RELX. We have added 2025.

Company by company

Pay is each company’s single total figure for its chief executive for 2025, shown as a multiple of London full-time male median pay in 1980 and in 2026.

  • Barclays: £15.0 million for C.S. Venkatakrishnan. 13 times in 1980, 252 times now. Barclays’ 1979/80 figure was £87,323.
  • RELX: £11.4 million for Erik Engstrom. 11 times in 1980, 191 times now. Reed’s 1979/80 figure was £75,209.
  • Lloyds Banking Group: £7.4 million for Charlie Nunn. 12 times in 1980, 124 times now. The 1979/80 figure was £79,344.
  • BP: £5.3 million for Murray Auchincloss, who led the company until 18 December 2025. 22 times in 1980, 89 times now. BP’s 1979/80 figure was £143,334.

Since the commission’s 2009 to 2011 figures, pay for the top job has risen by 464% at RELX, 245% at Barclays, 188% at Lloyds and 19% at BP.

After inflation

Prices have risen about six-fold since 1980, on the ONS Retail Prices Index. Allowing for that, combined pay for the four top jobs is about 17 times higher in real terms than in 1979/80. Median full-time male pay in London is about 1.4 times higher in real terms over the same period.

What the companies now report

Under rules introduced in 2019, each company publishes its own ratio of chief executive pay to its median UK employee: Barclays 248 to 1, RELX 149 to 1, Lloyds 141 to 1 and BP 79 to 1.

Most of today’s packages come from bonuses and long-term share awards. At Barclays, £5.6 million of the £15.0 million reflects the rise in the share price since the 2023 award; excluding that, the bank puts the figure at £9.4 million. In 1980 directors’ pay was mostly salary.

Across the UK, the High Pay Centre’s July 2026 report put median FTSE 100 chief executive pay at £5.06 million, 130 times the median UK full-time worker.

The gaps

Two of the six companies in the 1980 table drop out: Lonmin was bought by Sibanye-Stillwater in 2019 and GKN by Melrose in 2018, and neither successor is run from London. The companies have changed heavily since 1980, Lloyds in particular. The commission warned that its 1980 figures covered only the UK part of each company.

How we did it

Boardroom pay then: 1979/80 director’s pay as published in the High Pay Commission’s final report (November 2011), compiled by Incomes Data Services.

Boardroom pay now: the single total figure of remuneration for the chief executive for the year to 31 December 2025, from each company’s remuneration report. BP changed chief executive in December 2025; we use Murray Auchincloss’s figure and not the interim chief executive’s.

Worker pay then: ONS New Earnings Survey, April 1980: median gross weekly pay of full-time men in Greater London, £128.00, times 52 (£6,656). The survey did not publish a combined London figure for men and women, so we use men on both sides, as the commission did.

Worker pay now: ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings 2026, provisional, published 22 October 2026: median gross weekly pay of full-time men working in London, £1,149.80, times 52 (£59,790). Against all full-time London employees (£53,132) the average multiple is 184. The 2026 figures are provisional, and ONS says part of this year’s rise in London reflects changes in its sample; against the 2025 revised figure the multiple is 182.

Inflation: ONS Retail Prices Index, annual average 1980 against 2025, a factor of 6.02.

Sources