The number of Transport for London staff earning more than £100,000 a year has increased to 557

This is an increase of 42 people on the previous year and reverses a previous reduction in executives pocketing six-figure pay packets. Last year the number fell from 617 to 515.

The latest figures, which relate to the 2019/20 financial year, show that Crossrail's chief executive Mark Wild and deputy chief executive Chris Sexton both received bonuses, of £31,692 and £100,000 respectively.

These were earned in the 2018/18 financial year – when Crossrail’s proposed opening date of December 2018 had to be abandoned - but paid a year in arrears, as is normal practice across TfL.

A total of 36 Crossrail employees earned £100,000 or more – down from 47 in 2018/19.

The biggest earner was TfL’s chief executive Mike Brown, who is leaving the organisation this week [July 10]. He took home a package worth £519,661, including a bonus of £145,225.

Mr Wild received a total of £479,531 and Mr Sexton £404,490. The biggest bonus, of £179,638, was received by TfL property development director Lester Hampson, taking his earnings to £358,645.

TfL’s total wage bill increased by £2.6m to £2,179.4m. Total staff “headcount”, including agency staff, increased by 323 full-time-equivalent posts to 27,603. The median average wage was £51,578.

Caroline Pidgeon, Liberal Democrat member of the London Assembly, said: “These generous payments for TfL’s senior staff continue to be out of step with the harsh economic reality facing its passengers.

“Any form of bonus payments for senior staff working on Crossrail are simply unacceptable. When a project is above budget and set to open almost three years late bonus payments for its senior staff should have long been banished.”

The figures also reveal that 857 TfL employees were given paid leave to carry out union duties – including 40 union officials who worked full-time at TfL’s expense. The total cost of “trade union facility time” was £8.9m.

The number of “golden goodbye” pay-offs fell from 475 to 239, at a total cost of £18.6m. This follows a decision by Mayor Sadiq Khan in 2019 to curb bumper severance deals.

Last month TfL’s remuneration committee decided to defer bonuses that would have been paid in the current financial year for a further year, and not to award any bonuses for work done in 2020/21, due to the scale of the financial crisis caused by the fall in passengers due to coronavirus.

TfL said its pay policy was to pay salaries that “attracts, retains and motivates individuals of the right calibre to manage a large, complex organisation” and to “ensure that reward is based on performance”.

Of the 557 people who earned more than £100,000, 178 had a base salary in six figures. Others had their salary boosted by overtime, such as engineers on major projects such as the Northern line extension to Battersea or Bank station upgrade – or had their pay boosted by severance deals.

A TfL spokeswoman said the figures relates to the period almost entirely before the coronavirus pandemic, in which time TfL had reduced costs by £200m and increased reserves to more than £2 billion.

She said: “For 2020/21, the TfL remuneration committee has decided that there will be no performance awards for senior managers due to the financial impact of coronavirus on TfL’s finances, and any performance awards for the previous year are deferred for 12 months.”