Median CEO compensation at S&P 500 companies climbed to $17.5 million in 2026, a 6% increase from the prior year and a 63% jump from the $10.7 million recorded in 2017, according to a new report from The Conference Board, compiled with compensation consultant FW Cook and ESG analytics firm ESGAUGE. Across the broader Russell 3000, median CEO pay rose 7% to $7.1 million.
The figures arrive as compensation committees face mounting pressure to justify pay decisions—not just in dollar terms but in design, rationale, and alignment with long-term performance. The data reflect a market where equity is increasingly doing the heavy lifting, and where exceptional awards are drawing disproportionate fire.
Equity, not salary, drives the increase
Since 2021, base salary growth has been modest—up roughly 16% in both indexes—while performance-award values surged 51% in the Russell 3000 and 46% in the S&P 500. Time-based restricted stock awards and restricted stock units climbed 57% and 38%, respectively, in the Russell 3000. The strategic logic is straightforward: salary increases raise fixed costs indefinitely, while equity allows boards to boost potential value while retaining vesting schedules and performance conditions.
As equity makes up a larger share of total packages, headline compensation figures increasingly reflect grant-date accounting estimates rather than cash in hand—a distinction that matters for advisors evaluating proxy disclosures and say-on-pay votes. Incentive plan design is shifting in parallel: performance shares and performance stock units were used by 71% of Russell 3000 companies in 2026, up from 60% in 2019. Time-based RSAs and RSUs increased from 71% to 84%, while stock options fell from 40% to 25%. In the S&P 500, PSU prevalence held at 91%, while options dropped from 47% to 33%.
Company size remains the clearest dividing line
Scale, not sector, is the strongest predictor of CEO pay. Among Russell 3000 companies with less than $100 million in annual revenue, median CEO compensation was $3.4 million. At companies with at least $50 billion in revenue, the median reached $23.6 million—a nearly sevenfold difference. Salary accounted for 24% of total pay at the smallest revenue cohort and just 8% at the largest.
That gap matters for interpreting index-wide medians: a broad benchmark is a poor proxy for any specific company's peer group. Proxy advisory firms, including Vanguard's internal stewardship function, have increasingly emphasized peer-group appropriateness as a distinct governance question separate from pay level alone. Consumer staples, financials, and utilities recorded the largest year-over-year increases in the Russell 3000 in 2026, rising 25%, 22%, and 16%, respectively. Information technology and health care were essentially unchanged. Sector-level figures carry a caution: cohort composition shifts year to year, and grant timing can move a sector median without reflecting across-the-board pay changes.
Shareholders support pay—but not outliers
Despite rising overall pay, shareholder backing for executive compensation proposals strengthened in 2026. According to the Conference Board/ESGAUGE data, 76% of Russell 3000 say-on-pay proposals received at least 90% support, up from 72% the prior year. Only 0.9% failed outright. In the S&P 500, 73% of proposals cleared the 90% threshold and just 1.1% failed.
The dissent that did surface was concentrated. Warner Bros. Discovery received just 15.6% support after disclosing $165 million in CEO compensation, a package that included a special option award. Aon received 38.4% support following a $50 million target-value performance stock unit grant tied to an employment extension through 2030. The pattern, consistent with findings from proxy advisory firms ISS and Glass Lewis—both of which extended their pay-for-performance assessment periods to five years for the 2026 season—suggests investors are not broadly opposed to higher pay but are scrutinizing awards that depart from standard annual programs without clear justification.
CEO security becomes a governance issue
One of the more pointed findings is the rapid spread of personal and home security benefits, which the report attributes in part to the December 2024 killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York. Among S&P 500 CEOs, 34% received personal and home security benefits in 2026, up from 18% in 2024. In the Russell 3000, 11% of CEOs received such benefits, more than double the figure from two years prior. At the largest companies—those with at least $50 billion in annual revenue—60% of Russell 3000 CEOs now receive personal and home security.
The report notes that median disclosed costs were approximately $68,600 in the Russell 3000 and $101,900 in the S&P 500 among recipients, though the 20 largest security expenditures in the Russell 3000 averaged approximately $4.3 million. Security spending of $12.6 million was reported for Stephen A. Schwarzman at Blackstone and $8.8 million for Sundar Pichai at Alphabet. The report frames security increasingly as a duty-of-care question for boards rather than a conventional executive perk. Personal use of corporate aircraft was reported for 48% of S&P 500 CEOs, up from 43% in 2025, with some boards now requiring or encouraging aircraft use for security purposes.
For advisors, these trends underscore the importance of looking beyond headline numbers when evaluating executive pay. As family offices boost public equity exposure and ETF assets hit record levels, understanding the nuances of compensation design—and the signals they send about governance—remains a critical part of investment analysis.
