FAT cat executives within the UK's top companies will have pocketed more pay by lunchtime today than the average worker takes home all year.
Bosses within the UK's FTSE 100 companies are earning around £1,000 an hour, the High Pay Centre think tank said today.
BY contrast, the average worker in the UK is said to earn £28,200 a year.
Ian King, the man in charge of FTSE 100 company BAE Systems, with its maritime operation in Barrow, earns an annual base salary of £935,000.
But other top bosses are said to be on a salary running into millions, with advertising tsar Sir Martin Sorrell, of WWP, being paid more than £70 million in 2015 followed by Tony Pidgeley of the property and development firm Berkeley Group on more than £23 million for the same year.
High Pay Centre director Stefan Stern said: "Our new year calculation is not designed to make the return to work harder than it already is.
"But fat cat Wednesday is an important reminder of the continuing problem of the unfair pay gap in the UK.
"We hope the government will recognise that further reform to pay practices are needed if this gap is to be closed."
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