More than 2,000 TfL staff earned over £100k last year
More than 2,000 members of staff at Transport for London (TfL) earned over £100,000 last year, it has emerged.
The number of employees on six-figure salaries in 2024-25 surged by 900 since last year, according to the network's annual accounts.
Andy Lord, the TfL commissioner, received £639,164 in total remuneration, including performance-related pay and a retention bonus.
This is an increase of almost £115,000 compared to the previous year, with his bonus reaching £187,902.
The network, which is overseen by Sir Sadiq Khan, the London Mayor, defended Mr Lord's salary by saying that an equivalent role in the private sector would pay significantly more.
A spokesman said that it was 'essential that we continue to attract and retain staff across all disciplines'.
More than 100 managers on the Tube saw their salaries hit six figures due to two pay rises, one of which was backdated from the previous year.
TfL employs more than 28,000 staff and has an annual budget of around £9 billion. It made an operating surplus of £166 million in 2024-25.
But the network missed its own targets for passenger numbers and income from fares.
It attracted fewer customers on buses and the Docklands Light Railway than the previous year, and the number of Tube passengers grew more slowly than hoped.
The service has recently come under fire for its lack of action over fare evasion after Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, confronted fare dodgers at Stratford station.
Keith Prince, transport spokesman for the City Hall Conservatives in London, told The Standard: 'To see the number of TfL staff earning six figures balloon – at a time when Tube trains are covered in graffiti and the police face devastating cuts – smacks of tone deafness from Khan's TfL.'
Gareth Bacon, the shadow transport secretary, said: 'If the mayor stays on these tracks, passengers will be left paying even more for less – stuck on overcrowded, graffitied platforms, as Transport for London's £13 billion debt continues to spiral.
'Sadiq Khan's TfL is a six-figure gravy train hurtling off the rails with bonuses for the bosses and delays for the rest of us.'
Earlier this month, a group of Londoners filmed themselves removing graffiti from inside Tube trains as they were fed up of the vandalism being ignored.
The group, founded Joe Reeve, 28, said they were 'doing what Sadiq Khan can't' by cleaning up Bakerloo Line carriages.
It comes as London Underground drivers – who are already comfortably inside the top 10 per cent of all salaried employees in Britain – are threatening to go on strike if bosses refuse to pay them £76,000 a year.
The Telegraph understands that TfL has offered Tube drivers a 2.8 per cent pay increase.
But a union newsletter seen by The Telegraph said: 'We demand a pay rise that protects us from the real cost of living. As always, RMT bases our pay negotiations on the retail price index (RPI).'
A spokesman for TfL said: 'TfL is a complex £9bn billion-a-year turnover organisation that is central to the success of London and the UK – getting millions of Londoners and visitors to where they need to go each day, and delivering complex engineering projects across the city to improve transport for everyone.
'We are investing billions in improving the transport network and now, for the second year in a row, have achieved an operating surplus for operations.
'This means that our revenues cover the costs of running the existing transport network, with any surplus directly invested back into the transport network.'
They added: 'In a highly competitive market, in which comparator companies pay their top executives significantly more than TfL, it is essential that we continue to attract and retain staff across all disciplines of the organisation, which includes ensuring that pay increases are achieved across all levels of colleagues.'
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‘I'm still called a gold-digger. Men look at me like I'm stupid'
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