NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - A survey found that three out of five senior executives don't want to be CEO.

The survey by Burson-Marsteller found that 60 percent of senior executives at Fortune 1000 companies say they have no desire to hold a top job at a company. That's more than double the 27 percent who said "no" to the CEO spot in a 2001 survey by the public relations firm.

Only 35 percent polled in the latest survey said they wanted the top job, down from 47 percent in the 2001 study. The 2001 survey found a far greater percentage of those who were unsure about pursuing the top job.

"Due to shortened CEO tenure and intense media scrutiny, executives are more wary of the corner office," said Patrick Ford, chair of Burson-Marsteller's corporate/financial practice. "Executives know that CEO decisions and actions are examined 24 hours-a-day."

Leslie Gaines-Ross, the study's architect, said that typical CEO tenure is now down to between four and six years from 10 years as recently as 1990.

"It's a very short shelf life," she said. "It's increasingly shortened."

The Sarbanes-Oxley legislation, passed in 2002, toughened corporate governance requirements, including requiring CEOs to certify their company's financial reports under the threat of prison if the results turn out to be false. But Gaines-Ross said the real pressure on the CEOs from the legislation comes from its push for greater independence and oversight by corporate boards.

"A CEO who used to be all powerful now has 10 to 12 bosses," she said.

The various corporate governance crisis of the last few years has been a factor in the decline in interest in the top corporate job. The survey found that 64 percent of executives who had worked at a company that had undergone a crisis said they would decline the CEO post, compared to only 52 percent of executives who had never worked at a crisis-ridden company.

The survey comprised 150 senior executives at Fortune 1000 companies. A survey by the firm last year also found growing disenchantment with the top job by those who already held the post. It found 73 percent of U.S. CEOs have thought about leaving their jobs within a year of the survey, up from 54% in 2000. Gaines-Ross said the firm does not have any statistics on how many actually did leave.

It's also possible the job may be less lucrative than in the past. The value of new stock option awards to CEOs of large companies fell nearly 60 percent between 2001 to 2003, according to proxy analysis by human resources consultant Watson Wyatt, although the firm found that decline, however, was softened by a sharp increase in restricted stock and long-term incentive award values.