A new study reveals how much CEOs earn in comparison their employees on average.
It found that it takes less than a day for an entertainment and media CEO to earn an employees’ annual salary.
However, the technology industry is leading the way with the ratio of CEO to employee’s pay at 52:1.
Research shows that the average pay gap between CEOs and employees stands at £5,167,511.
This study also reveals the average salary for a CEO is £5.2 million while the average employee’s salary is £32,489.
These findings reveal the industries with the largest and smallest CEO to employee pay gap.
In all sectors studied, CEOs earned the average employee’s salary in less than a week with the average American CEO earning around £12.7 million in comparison to the average employee earning around £35,904.
Media CEOs Earn Employee’s Annual Pay in 4 hours
The largest disparity in CEO to employee pay was found in the media industry.
Here, the top dogs earned over £17.8 million on average compared to the average employee’s salary of £31,197.
This pay gap means it takes just half a day for an entertainment CEO to earn an employee’s yearly wage.
| Industry | Average Salary of CEO | Average Employees Salary | Days To Earn Salary |
| Media | £17,828,934 | £31,197 | 0.6 |
| Construction | £7,879,039 | £28,940 | 1.3 |
| Personal Goods | £7,207,056 | £28,827 | 1.5 |
| General Retailer | £3,892,275 | £20,790 | 1.9 |
| Finance | £5,807,388 | £31,439 | 2 |
| Insurance | £4,952,311 | £26,969 | 2 |
| Travel & Leisure | £4,672,237 | £25,033 | 2 |
| General Industrial | £4,217,557 | £27,236 | 2.4 |
| Pharmaceutical & Healthcare | £6,306,187 | £43,578 | 2.5 |
| Food and Drug Retailer | £2,991,560 | £22,716 | 2.8 |
| Real Estate | £3,781,750 | £33,091 | 3.2 |
The construction industry followed with the second largest pay gap with a ratio of 272:1 between industry CEOs and workers sitting.
The average CEO in the construction industry earns around £7.9 million, while a construction employee earns a salary of £28,940 on average.
This means it would only take a CEO 1.3 days to earn their co-workers salary.
Interestingly, technology CEOs had the smallest disparity between their wages with a ratio of 52:1, despite growing at a faster rate than several of the world’s economies.
As technology CEOs earn around £2.3 million a year, it takes just a week for them to earn an employee’s entire salary of £42,916.
The CEO Pay Gap around the World
This study revealed that the pay gap is prominent within all countries with a FTSE 100 CEO. Many of which reside in Europe, as eight of the top ten countries with the highest comparatively paid CEO’s were European.
However, the research revealed that the biggest pay gap can be found in America.
With the average American CEO earning around £12.7 million, and the average American employee earning around £35,904, the largest disparity between all countries analysed was established here.
Switzerland’s CEOs had the second highest earnings on average, which totals at £5.5 million.
Unfortunately, the high pay is not reflected within the workforce as the average worker earns around £36,928, a difference of £5,428,356.
The United Kingdom placed seventh with the average employee salary totaling £25,929, whilst the CEO’s average salary averages at £2.2 million.
| Country | Average Salary of CEO | Average Workers Salary | Difference |
| United States | £12,710,313 | £35,905 | £12,674,408 |
| Switzerland | £5,465,283 | £36,928 | £5,428,356 |
| Germany | £4,147,333 | £28,213 | £4,119,119 |
| Spain | £2,899,512 | £22,831 | £2,876,681 |
| Australia | £2,708,793 | £29,127 | £2,679,666 |
| France | £2,698,003 | £25,942 | £2,672,061 |
| Sweden | £2,236,998 | £25,135 | £2,211,863 |
| United Kingdom | £2,178,011 | £25,929 | £2,152,082 |
| Norway | £1,761,088 | £30,364 | £1,730,725 |
| Czech Republic | £1,654,802 | £15,044 | £1,639,758 |
This study reveals that the country with the lowest disparity in CEO and employee wages was Poland with a difference of £432,960.
However, employees here earn an average of only £16,036 a year, while CEOs earn £448,996.
(SmallBusinessPrices.co.uk studied the average worker-CEO earnings across different industries.)
