DAME Marjorie Scardino, the chief executive of Pearson, saw her total remuneration package increase by 18 per cent to £1.81 million last year.

The pay rise compares with an 8.6 per cent increase in the Pearson share price from the end of 2004 to the end of 2005.

The annual report of Pearson, which owns the Financial Times and Penguin books, shows that the total remuneration of the group’s directors, including Dame Marjorie, rose by 10 per cent to £6.24 million last year.

Of Dame Marjorie’s total remuneration, 33.1 per cent is base salary, 25.7 per cent is annual incentive and bonus matching and 41.2 per cent is target-related long-term incentives.

Pearson announced last month that the Financial Times made its first annual profit since 2001. The newspaper made a profit of £2 million last year after a reduction in costs and a more benign advertising market wiped out a loss of £9 million in 2004.

More than two thirds of Pearson’s profits come from its educational publishing business. The group said last month that Penguin’s sales had increased by 1 per cent to £804 million. However, Pearson said that sales this year would be flat.

Dame Marjorie said that Penguin was prepared for a low-growth future and would be run for cash and profits.

Pearson has slimmed down in recent years. Dame Marjorie took over a sprawling group in January 1997 and cleaned out an array of assets, including the Madame Tussaud’s waxworks and a stake in Lazard, the investment bank.

Shareholdings in BSkyB, the statellite broadcaster, and in the Flextech digital channels were also sold.

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