Are you worth it?

Do you merit your pay package? A new survey underscores the fact that bankers and fund managers earn rather a lot more than anyone else.

The study, conducted by the Guardian and Reward Technology Forum, a compensation specialist, found investment banking, fund management and the oil industry, pay employees the most.

The study only encompassed companies in the FTSE 100 index and therefore omitted notoriously generous remunerators like Goldman Sachs. However, it did touch upon the likes of Schroder Investment Management (where the average salary was apparently 125,425 last year) and Man Group, the listed hedge fund company, where pay now averages 146,243, up from 115,651.

The best payer on the FTSE is apparently 3i, where staff received an average pay package of 174,625 last year, up 60% on the year before.

By comparison, the Guardian says retail company Next pays its average employee a paltry 10,306.

Peter Newhouse, joint managing director of the Reward Technology Forum, says finance employees aren't paid over the odds, however. "It's a highly competitive industry, and they are paid what they can command on the market," he tells us. "It's not an issue of fairness."

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