One in five top chiefs is paid £1m

One in five directors of Britain's top 100 companies earned more than £1 million in salary and bonuses last year, exclusive research for the Evening Standard reveals today.

The survey highlights a huge rise in the number of boardroom members of the million-pound club in recent years, more than doubling since the 8.3per cent recorded in 1999.

While the multi-million pound packages of chief executives such as Sir Christopher Gent of Vodafone and Sir Martin Sorrell at advertising giant WPP have been hitting the headlines for years, the survey highlights how the sevenfigure contract has become increasingly standard for less senior executives such as finance directors and division heads.

Unions reacted with fury to the "fatcat" figures, with Roger Lyons, general secretary of manufacturing and finance union Amicus, saying: "Boardroom greed has gone crazy."

The TUC recently found average salary and bonus payments at leading British companies had more than doubled between 1994 and 2001 while employees' pay had increased by only 31per cent in the same period.

Last week Unilever revealed that six directors, including the head of its home and personal care division Keki Dadiseth and finance director Rudy Markham, were paid more than £1million. Chief executive Niall FitzGerald was paid ? 1.9million.

However, while boardroom pay at the company known for products from Magnum ice cream to Dove soap jumped 38per cent, the total bill for employees' wages went up only 3.3 per cent.

BP also put six in the millionpound club last year and this week, investment group Amvescap revealed it had four.

The rising trend among FTSE-100 directors is even starker in the second tier of companies making up the FTSE Mid 250, where in the past four years the percentage of million-pound payouts has soared from 1.3per cent to 5.6per cent - more than quadrupling.

The research, which took in pay deals of more than 1,000 directors in Britain's top 350 quoted companies, was carried out for the Evening Standard by pay monitors Incomes Data Services, drawing from companies' annual report and accounts details.

Steve Tatton at IDS said: "A lot of these deals are reflecting a good year for the companies, but the millionpound pay deal is a growing trend."

Like football stars, the best managers will move elsewhere if they do not get the going rate. "The companies argue that with globalisation, they have to compete on salaries and bonuses to attract the best people, especially with everrising pay in the US," Mr Tatton added.

Among the most generous payers are Vodafone, BP, Royal Bank of Scotland, Diageo and Glaxo-SmithKline. Sir Christopher of Vodafone was paid £6.89million while Lord Browne, chief executive of BP, received £3 million. Even Ken Berry, former chief of beleaguered EMI Music, made £2.98 million.

Peter Montagnon, head of investment affairs at the Association of British Insurers, which represents the biggest institutional shareholders in top companies, said big payouts were acceptable if the business had performed well for its shareholders. "Many billions of pounds rest on their leadership," he said.

Today's findings may come as a surprise in the face of swingeing job cuts and disappointing bonuses among City high-fliers.

However, while Credit Suisse First Boston, which fired 300 investment bankers this week, and Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch have axed an estimated 25,000 jobs since the economic downturn, most of these executives were involved in advising on mega merger deals which dried up long before the 11 September terror attacks in the US.

Many of the latest revelations also relate to the period before businesses around the world were hit by the devastating effects of the attacks.