The pay of water company chief executives in England and Wales rose by 5% in the last financial year to an average of £1.1m, despite a ban on bonuses for several companies and widespread outrage over the sector’s poor performance.
Total pay reported by water companies reached £15m in 2024-25, up 5% on £13.8m the previous year, according to Guardian analysis of 14 companies’ annual reports.
Water companies have been under scrutiny in recent years over their record on the environmentally damaging discharges of sewage into Britain’s rivers and seas. Politicians and campaigners have also reacted angrily to bill increases allowed in April by the regulator, Ofwat.
The pay figures raise questions about the effectiveness of the government’s efforts to limit water executives’ pay. Ofwat gained powers last year to insist that bonuses were paid by shareholders rather than through customers’ bills, before new rules in June that allowed a ban on bonuses for bosses of companies guilty of the most serious environmental damage.
The biggest pay increase was enjoyed by Keith Haslett, the chief executive of Affinity Water. He was awarded an extra £844,000, doubling his total pay to £1.6m. Portsmouth Water’s boss, Bob Taylor, also doubled his pay, to £754,000.
Six companies – Thames Water, Anglian Water, Southern Water, United Utilities, Wessex Water and Yorkshire Water – were banned from paying bonuses for the 2024-25 financial year to their chief executives and chief financial officers. The bonus ban did appear to have an effect, with pay falling 8% to £5.5m across those six suppliers. Most of that drop was driven by Thames Water, whose boss, Chris Weston, received £1m, after he and three predecessor chief executives received a total of £1.7m the year before.
Despite the bonus ban, Southern Water awarded its chief executive, Lawrence Gosden, an 80% pay increase to £1.4m.
After the Guardian revealed the increase, the environment secretary, Steve Reed, said Gosden should turn down the extra money. Southern Water said the pay increase complied with the rules. A spokesperson said it was not a bonus but part of a “two-year long-term incentive plan”. Not all the money was paid during the financial year, and he may not receive all of it if Southern fails to achieve an adequate environmental rating.
Sophie Conquest, lead campaigner at We Own It, a group campaigning for public ownership of water, said: “The public is rightly angry about the obscene levels of cash being handed over to the private water bosses.
“What has their highly valued commercial brilliance delivered for us? Water bills hiked by 30% and the ongoing vandalisation of our rivers and lakes. No new reservoirs built in 30 years, and 3bn litres of water lost daily to crumbling pipes.
“Never in the field of essential public services has so much been earned by so few for doing so little.”
Pay for chief financial officers pay fell 3% to £7.6m for the 12 water companies who disclosed it, although that decline was driven by a steep drop from £1.3m to £636,000 for the since-departed Alastair Cochran at Thames Water as the company neared collapse. Aside from Thames, CFO pay rose by 7% on average during the year.
The highest-paid water boss was Liv Garfield, of Severn Trent, a FTSE 100 company that supplies 4.6m households across the Midlands and north Wales. She was granted £3.3m during the financial year.
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The lowest-paid water chief executive was David Hinton, of South East Water, who received £456,000 – still well above the £270,000 salary for the head of the NHS.
Luke Hildyard, the executive director of the High Pay Centre, which campaigns against “excessive” pay, called for water company salaries to be limited to 10 times the lowest earners.
“Many people have found it hard to reconcile the litany of financial, environmental and customer service disasters variously afflicting these companies with top pay awards that have frequently exceeded £1m,” he said.
“Is a clean, reliable water supply really so contingent on these seven-figure pay awards?”
A government spokesperson said: “Undeserved bonuses for water company bosses have now been banned as part of the government’s plan to clean up our rivers, lakes and seas for good. We also have ringfenced customers’ bills to ensure investment must be spent on new sewage pipes and treatment works, not bonuses.
“Any instances of companies trying to circumvent the new rules are completely unacceptable. The government will leave no stone unturned against any bosses being made these payments.”
A spokesperson for Water UK, a lobby group, said: “Executive pay in the water industry is independently determined by remuneration committees, which abide by the laws and regulations set by government.
“Water companies are focused on investing a record £104bn over the next five years to secure our water supplies, end sewage entering our rivers and seas and support economic growth.”