Today has been coined ‘Fat Cat’ Wednesday as top bosses will have already earned over a thousand pounds an hour in the two and a half working days of 2017.

Calculations by think tank  the High Pay Centre show that top company executives passed the UK average salary of £28,200 by midday today, showing dramatically different rates of pay at the top compared with what other staff receive.

The average pay ratio between FTSE 100 CEOs and the average total pay of their employees in 2015 was 129:1.

Median FTSE 100 CEO pay in 2015 was £3.973 million and the High Pay Centre said that even if CEOs worked long hours with very few holidays, this is equivalent to a rate of pay of over £1,000 an hour.

In comparison, the National Living Wage for over 25s is £7.20 an hour.

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.

“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.”