The chief executive of British Gas owner Centrica pocketed a £2.4m pay packet last year, despite the firm losing hundreds of thousands of customers as it embarked on a major jobs cull.

On Thursday, the company announced its call centre in Glasgow had been earmarked for closure - with 406 jobs at risk.

The company cited "fierce" competition and "operating under a price cap" as reasons behind the decision to close its City Park office.

However, Iain Conn saw his total pay rise 44% from £1.68m in 2017 as he reaped the rewards of an annual bonus, according to the company's annual report.

It means that the energy boss is paid around 72 times more than the typical Centrica employee, who earns £33,718 on the firm's lower quartile scale.

The report said: "Iain has shown significant resilience in the face of this challenge and has led the business through the shifting context, keeping the strategic objectives in sight and ensuring that the organisation remains adaptable and innovative."

The pay rise comes at a sensitive time for the group.

Centrica announced last year that 4000 jobs were to be axed under a ramped-up efficiency programme, the majority of which will affect both its UK home and business units over the next three years.

The company's British workforce had already been slashed by 2100 on a like-for-like basis in 2017, taking the total number of job cuts to 5500 since the start of 2016.

In addition, the company lost 742,000 customers in 2018 as increased competition in the energy sector led to more people switching away to rivals.

To compound matters, in February Centrica warned that profits will be hammered to the tune of £300m by the energy regulator's price cap.

Shares slumped on the news and are yet to recover.

Last July, the Government passed a Bill which called on industry regulator Ofgem to impose a cap on all default energy tariffs, including the standard variable tariff, which came into effect at the start of the year.

Confirming the Glasgow jobs cuts last week, Sarwjit Sambhi, CEO of Centrica Consumer, said: "This difficult decision was made because we need to respond to the growing challenges we face.

"Our customers want more from us. Competition is fierce and we're operating under a price cap."

The company has proposed to make the cuts as part of its transformation programme.

It intends to maintain its commitment to Scotland through offices in Edinburgh and Uddingston, South Lanarkshire.

A total of 406 employees have now entered a period of consultation for proposed redundancy. A small number of roles from the Glasgow office may be moved to the Uddingston office.

Union leaders at Unison want to ensure there are no compulsory redundancies.

In response to Mr Conn's wage, Unison's national energy officer Matt Lay said: "It's an eye-wateringly high salary, and many, many times the annual wage of call centre workers whose jobs are under threat.

"There can be no justification when the company is cutting back in such a big way.

"But its problems go way beyond salary excess at the top. The instability of the market, the way the price cap has been introduced, and customers increasingly dealing with their accounts online all make for an extremely uncertain future."