The UK has a trust issue with big company bosses over the inflated pay packets they take home, according to a new poll of small business leaders.

A survey of 1,000 members of the Institute of Directors (IoD) shows 52% think headlines about big pay and bonuses erode trust in UK PLC.

The research was conducted for the High Pay Centre (HPC), a pressure group set up 2011 to address growing pay disparity between people at opposite ends of the career ladder.

The pay gap between average workers and top executives has been widening for 30 years, according to the HPC.

Recent examples include the £25 million package earmarked for BG Group boss Helge Lund. The IoD criticised the oil and gas group’s decision as “excessive” and “inflammatory”.

Meanwhile, Lloyds Bank chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio, bailed out by the tax-payer in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, is set to receive an £11 million package.

HPC director Deborah Hargreaves said the figures showed the business community was generally against high pay and “rewards for failure”.

"Outside the boardrooms of big corporations, ordinary small and medium-sized business owners are as appalled by the culture of top pay as anybody else,” she said.

"When big business leaders rake in seven or eight-figure pay packages every year, including massive bonuses regardless of company performance, we are clearly seeing a corporate governance failure, rather than a fair and functional free market.

"Ordinary workers, customers and wider society, not to mention shareholders, are being ripped off."