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The boss of the group that owns John Lewis and Waitrose was handed a 21% increase in basic pay last year to £1.2m while the retailer cut 3,300 jobs.
Jason Tarry, who became chair of the John Lewis Partnership (JLP) in September 2024, saw his annual salary increase by a fifth to £1.2m in the year to January, from £990,000.
He also received a £22,700 annual bonus – equivalent to 2% of his pay – and other benefits, taking his total pay package to almost £1.26m, compared with £415,000 a year before when he worked only part of the year after taking over from Sharon White.
The details were published in JLP’s annual report. Tarry’s pay remains below the £1.53m heights hit by another predecessor, Charlie Mayfield, in 2015, however, and the near £2m earned by the Co-op group’s former boss last year.
Tarry’s total pay last year was similar to White’s, who was on the same basic salary of £990,00 throughout her tenure and received a total package of £1.12m in both 2024 and 2023, the last two full years she was in the role. The group did not pay an annual bonus in either of those years.
The staff-owned company, which operates 36 department stores and more than 300 Waitrose supermarkets, said last year that Tarry’s basic pay was being increased to match that of the former chief executive Nish Kankiwala, who stepped down last year when his role was axed.
Despite Tarry’s pay rise, a reduction in senior roles meant that the total paid to key management, including directors, remained steady at £8m. Tarry was the highest-paid director.
A JLP spokesperson said: “With the chairman and CEO roles now combined, the chairman’s remuneration reflects leadership of both the executive team and the partnership board.”
The report also reveals that the partnership employs 65,700 people, down from 69,000 a year before, with 1,800 fewer full-time roles at Waitrose’s supermarkets and 1,500 fewer at the John Lewis department stores.
The spokesperson for JLP, which calls its staff “partners” because they collectively own the business, said: “The vast majority of the reduction reflects natural attrition with fewer than 0.5% of partners leaving through redundancy.”
The group employed 76,400 people in 2023. It had been thought to be considering cutting up to 11,000 jobs over the five years to 2029 and has cut 10,700 in the past three years.
In March, JLP said it would continue to seek ways of operating more efficiently this year, including more use of electronic shelf labels and AI, but it would not comment on whether more jobs could go.
The company, which has closed stores, cut jobs and ditched plans to build and rent out homes above its stores in order to trim costs, paid an annual bonus to workers in March for the first time in four years after underlying profits rose by 6%. Each worker, including the chair, received a bonus equivalent to 2% of salary.
During Tarry’s first 18 months at the business it has refocused on retail basics, including improved stores, product availability and pay for workers.
The firm is spending £800m across its stores as part of a long-term investment. It has refurbished 23 Waitrose sites and five John Lewis sites over the past year.
The department stores have attracted queues of shoppers for the high street revival of Topshop, and visitors driven by the revival of the “never knowingly undersold” pledge.
While John Lewis has closed 16 department stores in recent years, it is the UK’s largest department store chain, as rivals including Debenhams and Beales have collapsed and exited physical stores, while House of Fraser has radically downsized.
Tarry’s tenure has also included some mis-steps including the letting go of an autistic man who had been an unpaid volunteer shelf stacker at a Waitrose branch for years.
The company has also come under pressure to reinstate an employee of 17 years who was sacked after tackling a shoplifter who was trying to steal Lindt gold bunny Easter chocolates. Walker Smith has since been offered a job by the Iceland grocery chain.
