John Fallon, chief executive of Pearson, took home a whopping £1.7million last year - up from £1.5 million in 2016.

According to Pearson’s annual report, published today, the rise was due to a hike in annual bonus from £343,000 to £624,000 - but that was only 44 per cent of what he could have earned had additional performance targets been met.

The company, which describes itself as “the world’s largest education company, with over 35,000 employees in more than 70 countries”, provides a range of educational products and services to institutions and governments as well as directly to individual learners. It also owns UK exam board Edexcel, which sets GCSE, A levels and Btec exams.

Last May, shareholders vented their anger over a 20 per cent pay hike for Mr Fallon, with more than 65 per cent of votes cast against the company’s remuneration report.

Pearson’s remuneration committee said it had listened to shareholder feedback and was “rebalancing the performance measures for 2018 awards”.

The committee also highlighted that there was no increase in Mr Fallon’s base salary, though it would rise by 2.5 per cent in 2018 “in line with the average increases for UK employees”.

A Pearson spokesperson said: “Pearson delivered results in line with the demanding plan set at the beginning of 2017, and made good strategic progress against this plan. Given the level of performance achieved and the progress made during the year, the remuneration committee agreed on a limited increase in John’s overall remuneration.”