Bosses of Britain's biggest companies will earn more in the first three days of this week than the average worker's annual wage, research claims.

By 17:30 GMT on Wednesday, the pay of FTSE 100 chiefs will have overtaken the £31,461 annual median wage for full time workers, the High Pay Centre says.

Bosses' pay was flat last year, while average wages generally rose slightly.

That meant that FTSE chief executives had to work 34 hours to beat median annual pay, not the 33 hours in 2020.

The High Pay Centre think-tank based its annual calculations on analysis of disclosures in companies' annual reports, combined with government statistics.

High Pay Centre director Luke Hildyard said chief executive pay is about 120 times that of the typical UK worker, up significantly from two decades ago.

"Estimates suggest it was around 50 times at the turn of the millennium or 20 times in the early 1980s," he said.

"Factors such as the increasing role played by the finance industry in the economy, the outsourcing of low-paid work and the decline of trade union membership have widened the gaps between those at the top and everybody else over recent decades."