Shell chief reportedly set for £4.5m pay boost
The boss of Shell will reportedly receive a multimillion-pound remuneration incentive, with the firm poised to reveal a new boardroom pay policy.
According to reports, the firm’s chief executive Wael Sawan would pocket at least £4.5m more each year.
Sky News‘ Mark Kleinman has reported that investor sources have revealed a long-term incentive stock reward that would massively boost the Shell chief’s £1.5m base salary.
In the long term, Sawan would see his pay surpass £13.8m, with years of “significant outperformance”.
An additional bonus package, itself worth up to £3.8m, could boost the overall pay package up as high as £19.2m.
The oil giant is set to post its fourth quarter and full-year results on Thursday morning. In May last year, the energy giant announced plans for a bumper £19bn payday for its investors.
Shell would rank among highest FTSE 100 chief executive pay
This pay structure would nudge Shell’s chief executive pay up into the highest echelons of the FTSE 100.
In 2025, Wael Sawan took home an £8.6m pay package, while finance chief Sinead Gorman was paid £7.3m
Shareholders are broadly supportive of the move, according to Sky News, on the condition that there is “clear evidence of pay for performance”.
A pay boost of this scale runs counter to BP, a rival energy giant. Last year, its chief executive, Murray Auchincloss, took a pay cut of more than £2.3m after profits were slashed.
And reports of this pay package come amid broader anxieties around executive pay in the Square Mile.
Currently, the differential between an FTSE 100 chief executive and the median British worker is 122-fold. However, for the US S&P 500 index, that gap is far wider, a multiple of 285.
According to the Russell Reynolds CEO Turnover Index, chief executive tenures across the FTSE 250 are among “some of the shortest globally” at less than 5 years.
The research described these tenures as “the lowest we have recorded since we began tracking”.