BT Boss Jansen Agrees To 'waive' Future Salary Bumps

BT’s CEO has voluntarily agreed to forgo any further salary increases until he retires from the telecoms giant, amid major cost cutting efforts across the organization.

According to the Annual Report released today, Philip Jansen was paid £3.089 million for BT’s latest financial year ended 31 March 2023, this was down on the £3.35 million he was awarded in fiscal 2022.

Total fixed pay was £1.32 million, comprised of an unchanged base salary of £1.1 million, pension allowance that was flat year-on-year at £110,000 and benefit of £113,000, up from £100,000. Variable pay was down to £1.76 million from £2.04 million due to lower bonuses.

Of the cap of further rises, BT says in the Annual Report: "Philip's salary was fixed for five years on appointment and therefore no increase will be made in FY24. Philip has also volunteered to waive any salary increases beyond FY24."

The rest of the workforce will be told about their salary increases nearer to September, as the annual pay review was bumped from April, as negotiated by the Communication Workers Union last year.

That followed the first nationwide strikes at BT since 1987 over the pay increase given to staff in the spring of 2022, with the union asking for more to help offset the jumps in inflation. Tens of thousands of Openreach engineers downed tools from the summer until December, as did thousands of call center operators.

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Union said Jansen's 32 percent pay rise for fiscal 2022 was tone deaf, and so this latest move to voluntarily freeze his wages may be seen as a conciliatory gesture.

CWU and and rival union Prospect are also watching BT closely in the wake of last month's confirmation that it'll ditch up to 55,000 jobs, or 42 percent of its workforce, by 2030.

BT's rationale is that the most labor intensive part of FTTP network build will be done by then, meaning it'll need fewer engineers; that an uptick in network automation means the networks will be more automated; and that generative AI will mean fewer customer service folk are required. ®