Meet Andrew, the average British CEO: A study shows that the typical boss is a 55-year-old Cambridge-educated white man earning an annual salary of £4,196,000

In news that probably won’t surprise anyone, the average UK CEO is a 55-year-old, privately educated white man who studied economics at Cambridge and earns £4,196,000 a year.

Data from the FTSE100 – a list of the 100 largest companies listed on the London Stock Exchange – was used to identify the most common background of a UK CEO.

Researchers at People Managing People used artificial intelligence (AI) to combine the LinkedIn profile pictures of the UK’s top 100 CEOs.

The resulting composite image shows the face of an average CEO – a strangely familiar man named Andrew.

Finn Bartram, editor of People Managing People, said the eerie digital portrait shows the “undeniable privilege and gender disparity for top positions at some of the country’s biggest companies.”

Researchers used artificial intelligence (AI) to combine the LinkedIn profile pictures of the UK’s top 100 CEOs. The resulting composite image shows the face of an average CEO – a strangely familiar man named Andrew

The photos were combined using Midjourney’s blending feature, which allows users to submit two to five images as a template for a blended artificial image.

To overcome the image limitation, the 100 photos were divided into 20 groups of five images each and merged.

The resulting 20 images were then divided and shuffled, repeating the process until “Andrew” was created.

Andrew’s gender isn’t that much of a surprise, as data shows a massive male bias in top corporate positions.

Of the UK’s top 100 CEOs, 88 are men and just 11 are women.

Shockingly, the study found that there are more male CEOs named Andrew or Simon than women in the top positions of the largest companies.

However, Mr Bartram noted that this was an improvement compared to previous years.

“In 2020 there were only five female CEOs in the FTSE100, now there are 11,” he said.

According to the researchers, only three CEOs in the FTSE100 did not attend university. This includes Sainsburys’ Simon Roberts, who worked his way up from store management positions at M&S ​​and Boots

“If this trend continues, we could see the number of female CEOs become the same as male CEOs by the end of the decade.”

There is still an imbalance in the number of women making it to the top: female CEOs earn an average of £3,371,000 – 23.5 per cent less than men.

Among top CEOs, 66 percent had a private education, while Cambridge and Oxford were the most frequently chosen universities, with 14 percent of all listed bosses graduating.

According to the researchers, only three CEOs in the FTSE100 did not attend university.

This includes Sainsburys’ Simon Roberts, who worked his way up from store management positions at M&S ​​and Boots.

The study also highlights the eye-popping salaries some CEOs receive when they make it to the top.

While the average CEO earns 127 times the average UK salary, the highest paid CEO, AstraZeneca’s Pascal Soriot, earns three times that amount on an annual contract worth £15,323,000.

To put this into perspective, if a CEO had started work at 9am on Monday, by 9.20am on Wednesday morning they would have already earned the average annual salary of £33,000.

The only notable exception to the rule was Michael Murray of Frasers Group, who voluntarily gave up his salary and earns £0 a year.

The team hopes the findings will encourage UK companies to address privilege and gender inequality in the workplace.

“To truly address privilege and gender inequality in the corporate world, we must commit to a multi-pronged approach that includes equal opportunity, pay equity, mentoring, family-friendly policies and transparency,” Mr. Bartram added.

“It requires sustained efforts from everyone involved to promote diversity and inclusion at all levels of leadership.”

Speaking to MailOnline, Kelly Manthey, CEO of London Stock Exchange-listed technology consultancy Kin & Carta, said: “We all need role models who ‘see’ us and who we can ‘see’ having a shared experience.”

“It’s so important for women and any underrepresented group to have someone they can see.”