The boss of Barclays was rewarded with a 29% surge in his pay and bonus package to just over £15 million last year it was revealed today as the high street lender announced it made a better than forecast pre-tax profit of £9.14 billion.
Chief executive C.S. Venkatakrishnan, more widely known as Venkat, saw his total remuneration go up from £11.62 million in 20224 to £15.05 million in 2025, latest annual accounts show.
The meant his package was worth 248 times more than the median paid to workers at Barclays, up from 201 times in 2024. It is thought to be the biggest pay package for a Barclays CEO since the £17 million awarded to Bob Diamond in 2011.
The sharp increase in the headline remuneration figure was largely due to long term performance related share awards maturing in 2025 at a huge profit.
These awards, known as LTIPS, were worth £9.45 million compared with £6.23 million in 2024, if share price appreciation at the time of vesting is taken into account .
Venkat’s annual bonus was up from £2.22 million to £3.3 million, while his base salary was reduced from £2.94 million to £2.06 million following a change in pay policy for senior management and “material risk takers” last year.
That came after the Labour government scrapped caps on banker bonuses put in place in the wake of the financial crisis.
Venkat, 60, was appointed in November 2021, succeeding Jes Staley, who resigned following an FCA investigation into his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein
Chief financial office Anna Cross saw her pay and bonus package almost triple from £3.28 million to £8.97 million after she collected LTIPs worth £5.61 million. They were the first tranche of LTIPs to vest since she was appointed CFO in 2022.
Financial documents released today also show the bonus pool for 2025 performance has been increased to £2.21 billion, up 15% on 2024’s £1.91 billion. UK shop floor staff covered by the Unite union, were offered a salary increase of 4% for junior employees, and 3.2% overall.
The remuneration details were revealed as Barclays today unveiled new financial targets alongside better-than-expected results for 2025.
It reported a 13% increase in annual pre-tax profits to £9.1 billion, with the surplus for the final quarter up 12% to £1.86 billion, The City had expected figures in the region of £9 billion and £1.7 billion respectively.
Barclays said it aimed to deliver sustainably higher returns through to 2028 and beyond, including return on tangible equity of more than 14% in 2028. This compares with 11.3% in today’s results.
It is also planning at least £15 billion of capital distributions to shareholders between 2026 and 2028.
The bank announced total capital distributions of £3.7 billion for 2025, which is 23% higher than 2024.
This includes a £1.2 billion total dividend of 8.6p a share, up 2% on a year earlier and including plans for a full-year award of 5.6p. The bank intends to initiate a further share buyback of £1 billion.
