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 staff-owned company 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. The full details were published in JLP’s annual report on Wednesday.

Despite Tarry’s pay rise, a reduction in senior roles meant that the total paid out to key management, including directors, remained steady at £8m. Tarry was the highest-paid director.

A spokesperson for JLP 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 JLP 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 said: “The vast majority of the reduction reflects natural attrition with fewer than 0.5% of partners leaving through redundancy.”

The group, which calls its staff “partners” because they collectively own the business, 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.