Unite is the union for the 21st century, meeting the greatest challenges facing working people today
- Sharon Graham (Unite General Secretary)
2025 Pay Campaign Results
Will we get a fair share of the pie?
Stuart Thomas | 9th October 2024
Thank you to everyone who had their say on pay and completed our Unite in Aviva 2024 Pay Survey.
In line with our agreement, we’ve had our initial meetings with the company and shared the results and comments from the survey. Unite (heritage Friends Life) will now submit a formal pay claim and we (heritage Aviva) will share the feedback from our survey about what members are looking for this year as part of our normal consultation arrangements.
The headline result from our survey is that members overwhelmingly believe that this year’s pay rise should be at least in line with (RPI) inflation.
In October this sits at 2.7%. It should be noted that Unite uses RPI as its preferred measure of inflation, whilst Aviva (in common with most other employers and the ONS) uses CPI (currently 1.7%). Aviva is an extremely healthy financial position as it is holding more than twice the regulatory required amount, self-describing its performance as “Strong”.
This year, rather than asking members whether they felt that their pay had fallen against their cost-of-living expenses, we’ve asked whether members have had to cut back on spending, taken out loans, borrowed money or anything else in order to cope with the effects of rising inflation.
Finally, we asked if there was anything else you wanted to say on pay. This year, even more than last year, the comments come from people that are struggling. We have people saying that they’re worried and frightened about what the future holds and how they’ll manage. In previous years, we might have expected to see these comments from lower paid colleagues, but this year we’re seeing this affecting people across the grades. The main themes of these comments are:
We firmly believe Aviva can afford to give a pay rise and this is supported by research carried out by Unite’s Forensic Accountant.
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Aviva is an extremely healthy financial position as it is holding more than twice the regulatory required amount, self-describing its performance as “Strong”.
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Aviva’s strong financial performance and health means Amanda Blanc is increasingly confident that Aviva will be able to deliver “even more” for its shareholders.
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Aviva has remunerated shareholders more than £9.7 billion in the last five years and is still more than holding twice the regulatory requirement, whereas its workforce has suffered real term pay decreases in the period.
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Aviva has a target adjusted operating profit of £2 billion per year by 2026 and remains confident of hitting it, Aviva has more than enough funds to give its staff a fair increase.
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Aviva could have paid its worldwide workforce a 10% pay increase in 2023 and still generated an operating profit of nearly £1.3 billion.
Aviva Plc, a giant in the insurance world, serves over 19 million customers across the UK, Ireland, and Canada. The company’s latest financial results show a business thriving—though not all stakeholders are reaping the rewards equally.
In 2023, Aviva’s gross written premiums surged by 12%, reaching a whopping £10.9 billion. The company's adjusted operating profits also climbed to £1.47 billion. On paper, this sounds impressive, but it’s worth noting what these figures mean for the workers on the ground. Each Aviva employee effectively contributed to generating an average profit of £57,464. Despite these impressive figures, pay for many hasn’t kept pace with the rising cost of living.
While Aviva’s management touts a “strong” financial position, highlighted by £8.8 billion in surplus capital and over £17 billion in cash reserves, the benefits of these successes are heavily skewed toward shareholders and executives. Over the past five years, Aviva has handed out £9.7 billion through dividends and share buybacks, ensuring that investors stay happy. And it’s working—the company’s share price shot up by more than 32% in the past year.
This success hasn’t gone unnoticed by the credit rating agencies either, who all awarded Aviva an “A” rating, reinforcing the company’s image as a financially robust entity. CEO Amanda Blanc has been quick to raise dividend growth targets, signalling to investors that even more returns are on the horizon.
But what about the workers who help generate these billions? The disparity between the boardroom and the frontline is striking. In 2023, Blanc received a 16% pay rise, taking home more than £6.6 million—a package more than 145 times the pay of the median Aviva employee. This gap has widened from 127 times the year before. Meanwhile, the average pay for Aviva’s UK workers has dropped 4% in real terms over the past year, failing to keep up with inflation. Globally, Aviva employees fared even worse, with a 7% decline in real terms.
Aviva’s UK workforce, which makes up a large portion of its global employees, could have been better supported. A 10% pay increase for UK staff would have cost the company £76 million in 2023—a sum Aviva could have easily managed while still pocketing nearly £1.34 billion in operating profit. Extending a 10% pay boost to all employees worldwide would have cost £175 million, still leaving Aviva with a comfortable profit of £1.3 billion.
Yet, rather than investing in its workforce, Aviva has chosen to prioritise shareholder returns and executive pay. Despite generating nearly £4.5 billion in adjusted operating profits since 2021, the average Aviva worker is being asked to make do with less in real terms, even as their labour contributes to record-breaking profits.
Looking ahead, financial analysts forecast that Aviva will generate £5.5 billion in pre-tax profits between 2024 and 2026. Stock market analysts continue to rate the company as an ‘outperformer,’ indicating expectations of strong returns for shareholders. But whether those gains will trickle down to the workforce remains an open question.
With its coffers overflowing, Aviva has a clear choice: continue to hoard the rewards at the top, or start delivering a fairer deal for the workers who drive the company’s success. For the thousands of employees who have seen their pay packets shrink in real terms... it’s high time for Aviva to put its money where its mouth is.