OpenAI UK Ltd reported that its 110 London-based staff received a total of £255 million in combined cash pay and share awards over the past year, according to company accounts. That works out to an average of £2,318,181 per employee.
The filings show £87 million was paid in salaries and a further £168 million was awarded in shares. The company, which operates the ChatGPT service, is registered in Westminster and is in the process of opening a new headquarters in London’s King’s Cross area.
OpenAI has been preparing for a possible public listing and has indicated ambitions to list at a valuation near $1 trillion. The high level of compensation disclosed in the UK accounts reflects the pay packages the company has been offering as it seeks to attract and retain talent amid intense competition in the global artificial intelligence sector.
The accounts provide one of the clearest public windows into how OpenAI remunerates staff in its London operation. They add to wider scrutiny of compensation and governance at major AI firms as they scale up operations internationally and prepare for potential market listings.
The company did not provide further comment in the accounts on the structure of the share awards or how compensation levels compare with other offices globally. The figures were disclosed in statutory documents for OpenAI UK Ltd and do not, by themselves, detail wider global payroll or equity allocations by the parent group.