The chief executives of Britain's top 100 companies received average pay rises of 10.8 per cent last year, twice the rate of increase in average earnings for the whole economy.
A survey by the magazine Labour Research looked at the pay and benefits of chief executives from the FTSE-100.
It argued top executive pay had continued to soar out of all proportion to the rest of the UK workforce, whose earnings rose by 5 per cent in 2005.
Labour Research found Stanley Fink of hedge fund manager Man Group to be the highest overall earner on £9.77m.
In addition to a basic salary of £426,000 in the year ending March 2006, Fink received an annual bonus of £5.5m and £71,000 in benefits along with shares under the group's performance plans worth £3.77m.
The average combined pay and benefits of the FTSE 100 chief executives was recorded at £1.62m in 2005, compared with £1.51 million the year before.
Performance-related pay made up a large part of the chief executives' remuneration, but even their average basic pay rise of 6.9 per cent (up from £627,000 a year earlier to £633,000) outstripped the rest of the UK workforce, said Labour Research.
Soon to retire BP boss Lord Browne had the highest basic pay of £1.45m.
Neal Moister, researcher for the Labour Research Department, who carried out the survey, said: "The pay of some of these chief executives seems to be spiralling out of control. There seems to be no limit on how much these executives can earn."
