Trade unions warned yesterday that the Tories are heralding a return to the “same broken model” that led to the 2008 crash, after news that City fat cats are expecting a 21 per cent rise in bonuses.

Senior financiers told researchers that they expected to see a rise this year from £102,000 on average to £124,000 as firms thrive under Chancellor George Osborne.

Millions of public and private-sector workers may be facing frozen wages or pay cuts, but the financial sector is booming — in part because of billions in public cash has been passed directly into the hands of City institutions.

And Trades Union Congress general secretary Frances O’Grady warned that predictions of big bonuses were a worrying echo of the imbalanced economic conditions that forced taxpayers to fork out billions six years ago.

“A return to the excesses of the City’s bonus culture is another sign that we are going back to the same broken model that led to the crash,” she said.

Pay in some areas of finance also shot up by a much greater margin than the 1 per cent national average in 2014, according to research by recruiters Astbury Marsden.

The firm’s director Adam Jackson said: “Business conditions in the City have improved significantly over the last year,

which is now translating to rising bonus expectations.

“Despite shareholder and public pressure to limit bonuses — and with the EU bonus cap now set to be introduced at the start of 2015 — City staff clearly feel that their employers are in the position to reward them well.”

Among the booming areas of London’s biggest “casino” was investment banking, where average salaries went from £91,456 to £99,534 in 2014 — an 8.8 per cent rise.

Ratings agency employees did even better, chalking up a 19.3 per cent rise from £81,400 to £97,125.

But Ms O’Grady warned that fireworks in the City were not good news for Britain as a whole.

“If we want a recovery that is built to last, we need to get average wages growing,” she said.

“And that means that the proceeds of growth have to be fairly shared instead of just going to those at the top.”