From diversity chief to pest-controller: Jobs that are among UK’s highest and lowest paid

Workers on low wages have been shocked by figures showing that nearly 2,800 council chiefs were paid more than £100,000 last year – hundreds of them taking home more than the prime minister.

Some 721 town-hall bosses were given more than £150,000, including 608 who were paid more than Rishi Sunak, who earned £156,163 in the last financial year.

The figures, from the TaxPayers’ Alliance’s annual local government “rich list”, prompted anger among many council-tax payers, especially those on low or average wages.

The highest-earning was the unidentified managing director of Guildford Borough Council, who was paid £607,633 – enough to fund 18 nurses for a year.

The sums are at one end of a scale of huge disparities in salaries among UK workers, which often upend popular expectations.

The Treasury plans to pay its new head of cybersecurity only £50,550 to £57,500, around a third of the prime minister’s salary. But at a time of serious cyber threats from Russia and North Korea, it’s a highly responsible role: according to the job advert, the candidate will defend the government’s economic and finance department.

Equivalent jobs pay £128,696 to £140,074 elsewhere, according to the jobs review website Glassdoor.

And a director at Barclays bank makes on average at least three times the Treasury’s new cybersecurity chief’s salary – £173,990 including bonuses and additional compensation, the site shows.

Glassdoor also reveals that at Facebook owner Meta, a diversity director is paid £212,000 to £226,000 a year including bonuses, while a production engineer there is paid £102,754 on average.

By contrast, the salary for a talent consultant at the company is estimated to range from £21,199 to £22,723.

Powys county council, on the other hand, may have taken a leaf out of the Treasury’s book. It is advertising for an intelligence officer to “assist in providing a professional corporate investigation service by supporting the corporate fraud team in planning and undertaking proactive anti-fraud activities into allegations of fraud, error and corruption of varying nature and complexity”.

The successful candidate must have research skills, data interpretation skills, problem-solving skills, risk-management skills and writing, drafting and presentation skills. The job will pay £24,054 to £25,409.

Even plumbers can earn much more, commanding earnings that come close to the Treasury’s cybersecurity role, as demand for their services has grown over the years in line with the growth in homes.

A plumber working for the Pimlico Group in London will earn an average salary of £42,684 a year, Glassdoor figures show.

Away from London, Robert Rice Contractors have advertised for a plumber covering the southwest of England on a salary of £35,000-£40,000.

One start-up advertising on jobs site Indeed is promising freelance plumbers £50,000-£70,000 a year by accepting work through its app that books clients.

A site agent, who works under a contracts manager, manages construction sites, with an average national salary of £48,092. But posts for site agents advertised on Indeed, from Stockton-on-Tees to Cornwall, give salaries of around £400 a day – equal to £104,000 a year.

A deputy compliance manager in Home Office immigration enforcement at Gatwick Airport will earn just £26,750 to £28,730 a year for a job that involves enforcing immigration laws, tackling illegal migration, removing foreign national offenders and immigration offenders from the UK, as well as helping to disrupt organised criminal groups.

But apply for and be given the job of pest-controller in London and you will earn from £19,000 a year, according to one job advert, while similar roles come with a £25,000 salary.

The lowest paid jobs are usually paid a daily or weekly rate. Pay of £80-£90 a day is not atypical for a teaching assistant for children with speech and language special needs, and classroom assistants will be paid £70-£85 a day.

While pay in the not-for-profit sector is on average lower than in other sectors, there are still some high earnings to be had. A salary of £105,000 to £120,000 is being offered for an executive director of quality assurance and impact at a charity for people with a learning disability.