In a note to employees, he said he would return a 2017 pay increase which took his total package to more than £2.5 million (2.8 million euros, $3.2 million) — a 25 percent jump on the previous year, the FT said.

Ridding’s pay increase was £510,000, and after tax, the amount returned to the company will be about £280,000.

He said “the first call on these resources” would be a fund to “support the advancement of women into more senior roles at the FT and reduce the gender pay gap”.

The National Union of Journalists welcomed the move but said it “does not go far enough”.

It had complained that Ridding’s pay appeared to represent more than half of the FT’s £4 million operating profits from 2017.

The firm said that figure did not represent earnings of its global business, which were above £20 million, the FT reported.

The NUJ also said the rise “makes a mockery of any concept of fairness” after “years of negligible pay rises and real-term pay cuts” for staff, as well as squeezed resources and pension reforms.

A survey by the High Pay Centre and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development published this week found the average annual pay packet of Britain’s top executives jumped 23 percent in 2017, and was 160 times the average full-time wage. DM