HAMPSHIRE'S leading academics enjoy six figure salaries that far outstrip those earned by council fat cats, the Daily Echo can reveal.

And their inflation-busting rises awarded last year (2006-07) are, in some cases, double the four per cent pay increase awarded to the hundreds of academic staff including researchers and lecturers working for them.

The revelations of their salaries comes after the Daily Echo yesterday revealed that all six of Southampton City Council's directors have smashed through the £100,000 pay barrier for the first time.

They have enjoyed pay rises of more than three times that which has been offered to frontline council workers.

A survey of vice chancellors' annual pay packets shows the University of Southampton's vicechancellor Bill Wakeham earned £214,000 - a 9.2 per cent increase on the previous year.

On top of that he also enjoys the use of a university house near to the Highfield campus which also serves as a meeting place for senior staff.

Another perk of the job is that by daytime Professor Wakeham drives around in the university's environmentally friendly smartcar.

But at night when travelling on official business - especially when alcohol may be served - he can call on one of the university's drivers to collect him in the university's official Volvo car.

Dame Valerie Strachan, who chairs the university's remuneration committee that sets his salary said: "The university of Southampton is one of the UK's top ten research universities, with an annual turnover in the region of £325million, more than 22,000 students and 5,000 members of staff.

"It is to be expected that the vicechancellor of such a large and internationally renowned institution should be remunerated properly."

Meanwhile at Southampton Solent University Professor Roger Brown last year took home £172,000, a huge 12.1 per cent increase on the previous year.

And at the University of Winchester Professor Joy Carter earned £153,057 - a comparatively more modest 5.2 per cent increase on the year before.

The Times' Higher Education- Grant Thornton survey also revealed that the three Hampshire universities collectively put in £73,309 into the three vice-chancellors' pension pots during the past financial year alone.

Together all three universities were collectively given around £135million in taxpayers' money last year. They can also boost their income through business ventures and research grants.

It is a combination of these different pots of money that can be spent on vice-chancellors' salaries.

David Wheatley, president of Southampton University's branch of the University and Colleges Union, said: "I think the principle that we need to pay the best people in higher education the best pay should extend across the academic team."

Commenting on the pay awards Sally Hunt, general secretary of the UCU - which negotiated a staggered ten per cent increase in pay for academic staff two years ago - said that it was distasteful vice-chancellors enjoyed above average pay rises.

At the University of Winchester the salaries of senior managers are set by the human resources committee of the board of governors made up of business and community leaders.

At Southampton Solent University, which has 17,500 students and 644 academic staff, the vice-chancellor's salary is set by a remuneration committee including four independent university governors and is measured against performance objectives.