What does Liz Truss earn?
As prime minister, Liz Truss is entitled to an annual salary of £164,080. This amounted to a 5.3% payrise on the amount she was previously earning as foreign secretary.
The prime minister’s earnings are made up of £79,936 for the role of Prime Minister, and an additional £84,144 for being an MP.
Truss and her family, also have the right to live in the flat above the offices of 10 Downing Street; and enjoy the use of the Prime Minister’s official countryside residence at Chequers in Buckinghamshire.
How does the prime minister’s salary compare?
The salary paid to the prime minister places her in the top 1% of earners in the UK.
However, the prime minister’s salary is less than a twentieth of the median take home pay of the Chief Executives of the UK’s top FTSE 100 Companies (estimated at £3.61 million per year in 2020).
The prime minister may be a well known figure, but his substantial earnings, nevertheless appear even more miniscule when compared to those of other well known celebrities. For example, Liz Truss’ salary is little more than a “seventieth” of that earned by Manchester United footballer and political campaigner, Marcus Rashford (£10.4 million).
The British prime minister’s salary also compares less favourably with the salary earned by other world leaders.
Converted into US dollars, Liz Truss’ salary totals around $190,000. That is lower than that of the Canadian prime minister ($267,041), and considerably less than the $369,727 earned by Germany’s Chancellor.
The British prime minister’s earnings are only half that of the amount paid to both the US President ($400,000), and those paid to the President of the European Commission ($405,000).
Who sets the Prime Minister’s salary?
Liz Truss’ salary is set by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA).
It is not yet clear whether Liz Truss will claim the fulll salary to which she is entitled. In 2020-21, Boris Johnson chose to claim £75,440 out of a possible total of £79,936 earmarked specifically for his work as Prime Minister, in addition to that of his salary as an MP.
The earnings of former prime ministers
The real earnings potential for prime ministers does though appear to come after they have left office.
All recent UK prime ministers have been able to command substantial sums for speaking engagements. Indeed the going rate for a lecture by a recent former Prime Minister is said to be in excess of £100,000.
Since leaving office, Theresa May is said to have earned well from a number of such lucrative engagements including her speech to the Ivy League University, Brown, in Rhode Island, America. The Guardian newspaper claims that Theresa May has earned more than £2.1m since leaving office in July 2019.
In addition to speaking engagements, a former Prime Minister can expect to sign a lucrative book deal, and be courted for a number of advisory style appointments.
A former Prime Minister’s earnings are also likely to be influenced by their international recognition and longevity in the job. A highly recognisable figure around the world, this should bode particularly well, for Boris Johnson.
It is suggested that former Labour leader, Tony Blair, has though been the highest earning former Prime Minister in British history. He has previously been fated as the highest earning public speaker in the world. After leaving Downing Street, Blair secured well paid advisory roles with Zurich Financial Services and JP Morgan Chase. Back in 2014, Tony Blair was keen to insist that at that point, that his net worth was though less than £20 million.
