The leader of Saatchi & Saatchi Group was the highest-paid agency director in adland last year, with a salary of £967,000 – although this was a 13.35% decrease on the top salary in 2016.
The highest-paid director at Ogilvy earned £828,000 in 2017, but this was nearly 49% less than the highest-paid director the previous year.
The next highest-paid directors were at Leo Burnett (£625,000), Grey (£482,000) and Publicis (£437,000).
Highest-paid directors
| Company name | Year end | Latest | Previous | Change | |
| £000s | £000s | % | |||
| 1 | Saatchi & Saatchi Group Ltd | 31/12/2017 | 967 | 1,116 | (13.35) |
| 2 | Ogilvy & Mather Group (Holdings) Limited | 31/12/2017 | 828 | 1,621 | (48.92) |
| 3 | Leo Burnett Limited | 31/12/2017 | 625 | 611 | 2.29 |
| 4 | Grey Advertising Limited | 31/12/2017 | 482 | 772 | (37.56) |
| 5 | Publicis Limited | 31/12/2017 | 437 | 508 | (13.98) |
| 6 | J. Walter Thompson Group Limited | 31/12/2017 | 435 | 602 | (27.74) |
| 7 | Mother London Limited | 31/12/2017 | 419 | 362 | 15.75 |
| 8 | Spark44 Limited | 31/03/2018 | 386 | 245 | 57.55 |
| 9 | AKA Promotions Limited | 25/03/2017 | 357 | 285 | 25.26 |
| 10 | FCB Inferno Limited | 31/12/2017 | 337 | 334 | 0.90 |
Meanwhile, among those running UK listed ad agency groups, unsurprisingly it was still Sir Martin Sorrell who took home the biggest pay packet at £13,930,000, followed by Paul Taffe from Huntsworth with £1,463,000 and Alex Batchelor from System1 Group with £1,462,569.
UK quoted highest-paid directors
| Group | Director | Latest | Previous | Change (%) | |
| 1 | WPP Group Plc | Sir Martin Sorrell | 13,930,000 | 48,148,000 | (71.07) |
| 2 | Huntsworth Plc | Paul Taaffe | 1,463,000 | 869,000 | 68.35 |
| 3 | System1 Group plc | Alex Batchelor | 1,462,569 | 581,687 | 151.44 |
| 4 | Next Fifteen Communications Group Plc | Tim Dyson | 1,063,000 | 1,072,000 | (0.84) |
| 5 | Cello Group Plc | Mark Scott | 803,000 | 1,167,000 | (31.19) |
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