BRITAIN’S top bosses will have earned more money by 1pm today than the average worker makes in the entire year.

New research published on “fat cat Friday” shows chief executives at leading British firms are earning 133 times more than workers on a median annual salary of £28,758.

The average annual wage of bosses at FTSE 100 firms has risen by 11 per cent since this time last year to £3.9 million, making executive wages the highest since records began in 2017.

Bosses working a 12-hour day now only need to work 29 hours in 2019 to be paid the average worker’s annual salary, the High Pay Centre think tank and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) findings show.

They claim that a growing culture of “superstar” chief executives demanding huge payouts has become the “benchmark” in Britain.

And the leap in wages is despite the fact that most British workers saw their wages significantly stagnate in the second half of 2018.

The report also concludes that this culture is affecting broader public trust in big businesses and corporate leadership.

Luke Hildyard, director of the High Pay Centre, said: "Excessive executive pay represents a massive corporate governance failure and is a barrier to a fairer economy.

“Corporate boards are too willing to spend millions on top executives without any real justification, while the wider workforce is treated as a cost to be minimised.”

Think tank Class have called for a new tax on excessive pay to curb the problem by removing executive pay of more than £300,000 from corporation tax deductibility.

Class director Dr Faiza Shaheen said: “Pay inequality of this scale is an injustice and demonstrates a deep problem with the way wages are shared across the workforce.

“The government needs to stop hiding behind myths about indispensable pin-striped bosses and finally tackle the growing wealth divide by introducing new taxes and ensuring workers are included on boards.”

GMB general secretary Tim Roache called the statistics “sickening” and demanded that Prime Minister Theresa May take action to tackle poverty pay and corporate greed.

"It’s not fair, it makes no sense in how we value people’s contribution to society and it makes no sense for the economy,” he said.

“I don’t know any care workers who squirrel their wages away in offshore accounts, they spend it in their local areas and on paying their bills.

“We need action now – a better living wage and an end to the government hamstringing trade unions who for generations have delivered better pay, terms and conditions for members.”

Labour shadow business secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey said that the statistics “epitomise” how “disgracefully skewed” British society has become.

“The Tories have done nothing to address such blatant inequality and they continue to push real aspiration further and further from the grasp of the majority of people in Britain,” she said.

“The next Labour government will tackle rampant pay inequality with a real living wage of at least £10 per hour, with an excessive pay levy, and by rolling out maximum pay ratios of 20:1 in the public sector and in companies bidding for public contracts.”