Who are the FTSE's best-paid CEOs?

For most of us, £43 million is far more than we will make in a lifetime. For Sir Martin Sorrell, though, it's just a year's pay. Thanks to bonuses and an incentive scheme, he was the highest-paid CEO in the FTSE 100 last year.

And none of them is doing badly, with the average pay for a FTSE 100 boss standing at £5.04 million a year, according to research from the High Pay Centre and the Daily Mail.

We take a look at the top 10 and ask what they're doing for their money.

The 10 highest-paid FTSE 100 CEOs

1. Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO, WPP: £43m
WPP is the world's largest advertising group by sales, but even so the chairman of its compensation committee has admitted that Sorrell's pay packet is 'large by any standard'. It represents 1,200 times the average pay of his employees.

Sorrell, who founded the group in the mid-1980s, is credited with helping the company increase its share price by 43% in the last two years, but still faces opposition from shareholders to his massive pay packet. Last year, 18% of WPP's shareholders voted against the company's remuneration report - and this latest pay-out is likely to cause even more controversy at the company's annual meeting in June.

2. Ben van Beurden, CEO, Royal Dutch Shell: £19.5m
The CEO of Europe's biggest oil company pulled in £17.1 million last year - despite falling oil prices hitting the company's shares. This bumper pay packet was boosted by pension payments and 'tax equalisation'money.

He's been credited with turning around the company's troubled Chemicals division, trebling profits between 2008 and 2012. His next challenge will be handling the company's takeover of BG Group, which Shell is buying for £55 billion.

3. Erik Engstrom, CEO, Reed Elsevier: £16.2m
The 51-year-old Swede has been in charge of the Anglo-Dutch publishing group since 2009, and is seen as having improved the company's business in terms of both its portfolio and its geographic reach. Shares have risen more than 150% since 2012. The company's now focusing on simplifying its business, focusing more on events, and will rebrand as RELX in July.

Engstrom is paid 322 times as much as his average worker.

4. Peter Long, CEO, Tui Travel: £13.3m
Tui Travel owns both First Choice and Thomson holidays, and is the world's biggest holiday business. In recent years Long, 62, has been credited with increasing profits through what have been hard times for the travel business by offering a range of unusual or unique holidays and hotels.

5. Tidjane Thiam, CEO, Prudential: £11.8m
Despite his bumper pay packet, Tidjane Thiam is soon off to pastures new to become chief executive of Credit Suisse next month. It's not known how much he'll be earning there, but his pay package from Prudential in 2014 was up 36% on the year before.

Prudential's renumeration committee says he's helped the company through tough times, such as last year's budget changes and the decline in long-term interest rates.

6. Antonio Horta-Osorio, CEO, Lloyds Banking Group: £11.5m
Horta-Osorio, 51, has headed the bank for four years and received a huge share award this year.

He's credited with turning around the bank, which was bailed out by the tax-payer in 2008 and is still still one-fifth publicly owned. He's justified his pay packet by pointing out the bank's steady rise in stock market value, after a refocussing on the UK market the loss of over 50,000 jobs.

7. Rakesh Kapoor, CEO, Reckitt Benckiser: £11.2m
You may not have heard of Reckitt Benckiser , but the company makes consumer products from French's Mustard to Harpic, and from Cillit Bang to Veet.

Indian-born Kapoor has been with the company since 1987, and been in charge since 2011. He's now working on streamlining the company, cutting the number of geographic businesses from three to two.

8. Ian Gorham, CEO, Hargreaves Lansdown: £10.6m
Gorham, 45, has headed financial provider Hargreaves Lansdown since 2010, and had a particularly lucrative 2014 thanks to cashing in some long-term share options. It's rather more than the £10,000 salary the company's billionaire co-founder Peter Hargreaves took in 2013-14.

But since Gorham took over, the company's sales have grown by 98%, profit by 142% and the share price by 217%.

9. Don Robert, CEO, Experian: £10.2m
Credit-check firm Experian would presumably give Don Robert a good report. He joined the company in 2001, and was made chief executive in 2007.

He's since been announced as the company's chairman, although the promotion has been criticised for breaching corporate governance rules, which only allow a CEO to become chairman in the most exceptional circumstances. However, the company''s defended its decision, saying it needs continuity.

10. Bob Dudley, CEO, BP: £9.3m
BP chief executive Bob Dudley was given a 25% pay rise last year - while the rest of the company experienced a pay freeze. Ashareholder group has protested. His £9.3 million for the year includes bonuses awarded on the basis of financial performance and safety targets.

His strategy is to weather the storm of falling oil prices by cutting back capital spending and reducing costs.

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