This is how much more than you your boss is earning

Unless you’re reading this from the gold-trimmed seat of your ivory tower, using yesterday's copy of the Financial Times to wipe off stray pieces of caviar from your iPad screen, we’ve some bad news for you...

According to a report by finance think tank the High Pay Centre, top UK bosses now earn 183 times more than a full-time worker, with FTSE 100 chief executives earning an average of £4.96m in 2014. It almost beggars belief.

Compare this with the median employee pay of £27,195 and the pay gap becomes even more of a chasm, aided of course by fat finance packages and dangerously excessive bonus cultures which had even led a think tank spokeswoman to label the findings as "far beyond what is sensible.”

Deborah Hargreaves, director of the High Pay Centre, added: "It's more likely that corporate governance structures in the UK are riddled with glaring weaknesses and conflicts of interest.”

And while these ludicrous figures may highlight the Mammon of a small-if-powerful group of corporate CEOs compared to the average working man, it appears that down on planet sensible, the wage gap between employees and senior staff might not be as bad as you think..

Here we’ve used recent data from websites including Reed, Monster, Total Jobs, as well as the High Pay Centre, to list average salaries of bosses and their staff across a few choice professions across the UK.

Marketing and PR: £37,024
PR/marketing director: £80,000 

Teachers: £34,523
Headteacher: £61,900

Human resources: £38,135
Human resources director: 64,409

Construction worker: £20,176
Construction manager: £57,500

Accountant: £28,157
Accounting manager: £57,887

Investment banker: £40,000
Investment banking VP: £150,000 / MD: £800,000

Media (digital and creative): £35,248
Media agency director: £84, 900

Software development: £34,404
Software development manager: £50,998 

Retail merchandiser: £14,738
Retail manager: £22,993

Police officers (sergeant and below): £38,720
Senior police officer: £58,533

Design architect: £33,008 
Associate architect: £45,000

Estate agent: £24,622
Branch manager: £52,500

Ambulance staff: £22,854  
Nurses: £26,158
Doctors: £70,646
NHS director: £162,500

Chef: £17,391
Restaurant manager: £22,281

Librarians: £23,940
Library manager: £26,315