Fat Cat Wednesday: Top executives have already earned the average worker's entire annual salary

With pay of more than £1,000 an hour it has taken fewer than three days to out-earn the typical employee - the national living wage is £7.20

Sir Martin Sorrel says he is worth every penny of his £70m pay packet (Getty)

Senior executives have already made more money in 2017 than the average British worker will earn all year, new research shows.

The High Pay Centre has dubbed today "Fat Cat Wednesday", after finding that bosses will rake in the median salary of £28,200 by midday.

With average hourly salaries of £1,000 an hour it has taken less than three days to out-earn the typical worker. Meanwhile the national living wage stands at £7.20 per hour.

The High Pay Centre said it made the “generous assumption” that top bosses work 12 hours a day, most weekends and take fewer than 10 days holiday a year, in order to justify their pay packets.

Bosses of FTSE 100 companies took home close to £4 million on average, or 144 times what normal workers in 2015 the report found.

While top executives enjoyed a 10 per cent pay hike in 2015, real average wages have stagnated for more than a decade, figures from the Office of national Statistics show.

Excessive pay in private firms is now setting a bad example in the public and not-for-profit sectors, with controversy over packages for some university vice chancellors, NHS Trust chief executives, council leaders and charity bosses, the report warned.

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.

“That will be the main point in our submission to the business department in its current consultation over corporate governance reform.

“Effective representation for ordinary workers on the company remuneration committees that set executive pay, and publication of the pay ratio between the highest and average earner within a company, would bring a greater sense of proportion to the setting of top pay.”

Additional reporting by PA