UK has 3x more bankers on €1m than rest of EU combined

The UK has thrice as many bankers earning one million euros as all other EU countries put together, a study by the European Banking Authority has shown.

The research revealed that the UK saw more than 2,400 bankers getting a salary in excess of one million euros (£870,000) in 2011.

Out of the 3,175 bankers in the EU who are categorised as “high earners”, 2,436 of them are in the UK and 739 in the rest of the EU.

In 2011, the highest-paid UK bankers earned bonuses worth 2.72 billion euros in total, on top of 785 million euros in basic salaries.

In the UK’s roster of high earners, 1,809 were investment bankers, 85 were retail bankers, 182 were fund managers and 360 were classified as in other business areas.

Germany accounted for 170 bankers who were paid one million euros or more in 2011, and France was home to 162. While debt-ridden Spain has 125 of the high-earners, Italy has 96. The study also showed that some bankers in Cyprus, Greece, Portugal and Ireland earned more than one million euros despite being hit by the Eurozone crisis.

The number of high-earners has fallen since 2010 when 3,435 bankers across the EU earned more than a million euros. Out of the 3,435 bankers in the 2010 research, 2,525 bankers were in the UK.

Pat McFadden, a Labour MP who sits on the Treasury select committee, said: “These figures illustrate the on-going problem with huge salaries in banking at a time of austerity for most people. The problem with pay in banking is not just the high levels but that bonuses are paid out without risks being understood and on the basis of results that don’t look so good in the future.”