In April this year it was revealed that Foxtons CEO Nic Budden had been awarded a 19% pay rise which is likely to boost his salary to £2.3 million for 2016, up from his 2015 salary of £856,000, making him one of the best paid CEOs in property.

He is one of an elite group of business leaders in our industry who earn six and seven figure total pay packages and lead companies with thousands of employees from multi-agency group to the big portals.

But except for Alison Platt of Countrywide and Alex Chesterman of Zoopla, this high-flying club of top executives is a largely anonymous and invisible bunch who rarely venture out into the public eye, and whose performances are rarely examined or discussed despite being responsible for the livelihoods of many thousands of property professionals.

So how do they measure up – are their public limited companies doing well?

1. CEO: Mark Allan (until June), £2.4m
Company: Unite
Sector: Student accommodation
Revenue: +10%
Share price: -12%
Profit: +260%

2. CEO: Nick McKittrick, £2.3m
Company: Rightmove
Sector: Portals
Revenue: +25%
Share price: +83%
Underlying profit: +16%

3. CEO: Jeremy Helsby, £2.29m
Company: Savills
Sector: Sales and lettings
Revenue: +20%
Share price: +14.5%
Underlying profit: +20%

4. CEO: Andrew Cunningham, £2.19m
Company: Grainger
Sector: Private Rental Sector
Revenue: -23%
Share price: -9.46%
Profit: -43%

5. CEO: Alex Chesterman, £1.07m
Company: ZPG
Sector: Portals
Revenue: +34%
Share price: +36%
Profit: +20%

6. CEO: Alison Platt, £964,000
Company: Countrywide
Sector: Sales and lettings
Revenue: +4%
Share price: -50%
Profit: -37%

7. CEO: Ian Crabb, £900,129
Company: LSL
Sector: Sales and lettings
Revenue: +5%
Share price: -29%
Profit: +21%

8. CEO: Nic Budden, £856,000
Company: Foxtons
Sector: Sales and lettings
Revenue: +4.1%
Share price: -37%
Profit: -2.6%