Bosses at the UK's top companies will make more money in just four working days than the average worker in Reading will all year, estimates suggest.

The High Pay Centre said some of the country's lowest paid jobs have been the most important during the Covid-19 pandemic, and that income inequality may now be harder to justify.

The think tank estimates the average annual pay of FTSE 100 CEOs was £2.7 million (around £827.69 per hour of their 12.5-hour days) in 2020 – the latest data available.

Assuming they started work at 8.30am last Tuesday, they already earnt a Reading full-time worker's average salary (£36,500 in 2021) by 3.30pm on Friday, January 7 – just the fourth working day of the year.

This means it would take an average Reading employee 74 years to earn the annual salary of a top CEO.

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High Pay Centre director Luke Hildyard said: "Covid-19 has shown how much we all depend on each other. Some of the lowest-paying jobs have played the most important role to keep society functioning through the pandemic.

"With the value of the UK economy reduced, there’s also greater pressure to share what we do have more evenly.

"In this context, vast CEO to worker pay differences may be harder to justify."

The median is used to stop figures being skewed by particularly small or large wages, and it is assumed that CEOs work 62.5 hours a week.

The average Reading salary was up from £33,032 in 2020.

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Danny Magill, senior research officer at the Equality Trust, said: "In a year where this country has faced unprecedented economic challenges, most CEOs pay packages barely changed, showing how detached high earning CEOs’ have become from the realities of ordinary working people.

"While the taxpayer supported large companies, it was essential workers that kept the economy afloat throughout the pandemic, often for low wages, with no sick pay and at great personal risk."

With women in Reading earning less on average for working full-time than men (£32,086 compared to £37,665), FTSE 100 bosses will surpass their annual wage in just 39 hours.