Shareholders consider the level of executive compensation in the UK to be a top corporate governance concern, but rarely cause a stir over pay packages in continental Europe, according to voting advisory agency Manifest.

In Europe as a whole, shareholder dissent has risen from 2005, the last time Manifest did a comparable survey. The average dissenting votes - comprising "no" votes and abstentions - across nine principal country indexes rose from 4% in 2005 to 4.5%.