McVicar refutes any suggestion that he is paid too much.

UCLan’s Vice-Chancellor has warned that “ill-informed” discussions of senior staff pay will simply drive competent professionals out of the UK and into the hands of overseas competitors.

His warning comes after BBC current affairs programme Panorama revealed that 9000 public sector workers earn more than the Prime Minister, David Cameron.

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Malcolm McVicar, UCLan’s Vice-Chancellor for the last 12 years, said: “My salary is published in the Annual Accounts each year. The figure [£275,000] you have quoted is the total figure including pension compensation. If you take the equivalent package for the Prime Minister it is over £1million.”

“The salaries paid to British Vice-Chancellors are significantly less than those paid to Australian or American Vice-Chancellors and the total package is less than would be paid to a Managing Director of a successful company with a gross turnover of £200m per annum and 3000 employees.”

University College London’s Provost and President, Malcolm Grant is the best paid higher education boss in the UK receiving £376,190 per year.

In comparison, Shirley Ann Jackson, the President of the Renneselaer Polytechnic Institute is the highest paid university chief in the United States receiving an average of £1 million a year.

Earlier this year Dr McVicar wrote an article for the Guardian outlining his views on university executives’ pay.

Writing in a personal capacity, he said: “There is an international market for senior university executives and academics; if the UK is to grow and succeed, we must be allowed to compete. Simply, if we don’t pay appropriate salaries, we won’t get decent people to run or teach in the universities.”

He added: “Of course, there have been obscene examples of excessive rewards in the private sector. Nobody could justify some of the reward packages which have gone to some members of the banking industry or some senior executives in private companies. However, there is none of that in the university sector.”

Joint reporting with Chris McBriarty.