Top dogs in the salary stakes revealed

It has always been obvious that if you want to make a lot of money you would go into the City rather than anything really useful such as medicine or engineering. But this is ridiculous: a "dog groomer" earns more than a junior hospital doctor, on a salary of pounds 16,000 as opposed to pounds 14,740- pounds 16,640.

This is one of the findings of the annual salary survey in the September edition of Esquire magazine. The league table confirms the suspicion that, roughly speaking, the greater a job's contribution to society, the lower the pay.

At the bottom of the scale are those who feed us, teach us, make us better when we are ill, carry out research to improve the quality of our life or wear a uniform to protect us. A starting salary in catering is only pounds 7,300. It climbs to just under pounds 12,000 in further education. A laboratory technician can expect to start on pounds 13,000. A squaddie will make only pounds 10,746 and a young police constable will earn pounds 14,412 a year.

Admittedly, someone who climbs the ranks to chief constable will earn just under pounds 90,000, but that pales into insignificance compared with the six-figure salaries in banking or public relations.

Civil Service pay does not compare as badly as it did a decade ago. The range for permanent secretaries is pounds 90,000- pounds 154,400, and the senior bands are all above pounds 38,000. The Lord Chief Justice is on pounds 132,178 - peanuts by the standards of a top commercial barrister making half a million, however.

Whitehall is also doing very nicely compared to the rest of the public sector. A National Health Service consultant's basic salary can climb to pounds 53,900, and top whack for a principal lecturer in higher education is pounds 32,030.

Among those striking for more pay at the moment, postal workers make a modest pounds 14,880 basic. Drivers on London Underground are on pounds 24,650.

MPs did not have to go on strike. They negotiated with themselves and settled on a 26 per cent rise to pounds 43,000 from the current pounds 34,085 (plus office allowance of pounds 42,754). Many people would agree that the rule of thumb that the higher the pay the lower the usefulness is clearly in operation here.

Only the Royal Family is better paid than the country's top earners. The Queen gets pounds 7.9m a year, the equivalent of more than 478 junior doctors. It makes the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester a snip at pounds 175,000, or only 101/2 doctors. Or 101/2 dog groomers, for that matter, in a comparison that will make more sense to royalty.