20 September 2010 Last updated at 10:48 ET

Public Sector pay: The numbers

More than 9,000 public sector employees earn more than Prime Minister David Cameron, who took a 5% pay cut when he took office - he now earns £142,500.

New research for BBC Panorama found that there were more than 38,000 public employees earning above £100,000, and 1,000 people on more than £200,000.

BBC News website readers have been sending us their reaction.

I am an administrative officer working for the Prison Service. My starting salary doesn't even break the £15,000 mark. I'd like to know what these people do that entitles them to earn more money than I'll see in 10 years! My department is under-staffed and over-worked, and it's because people are being paid these ridiculous salaries. I think it's incredibly unfair, and if something isn't done, and soon, many people are going to strike.

Jen, UK

These numbers are evidently supposed to be shocking, but I was actually quite impressed by how reserved the top salaries are. Any sizeable private company will pay its top earners far more than this, and personally I'd like to think the chief executives of such important national institutions are the pick of the bunch, so salary reduction would be a very bad idea.

Micheal, Newbury

I think it's perfectly acceptable that there are public servants paid more than the prime minister - he has a substantial coterie of aides and assistants to help him with his job whereas the same most likely can't be said of the people on your list. These people aren't making cups of tea for a living - they're professionals working in the public sector who could probably earn a lot more in the private sector. High-level positions require high-level wages to get the best people.

Chris Harker, Durham

Absolutely astounded! University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust has 349 of the supposedly most intelligent people in the UK earning more than the prime minister, a man who determines whether or not the country goes to war. That's a lot of people discussing who buys the bandages. Privatise the NHS, kick them to the kerb, reduce debt as they can't get it right.

Paul Gibbons, Coventry

I have been working in local government as an admin assistant for the past 18 months after taking a drop of 50% in salary following redundancy from a London job. I earn less than I was getting when I worked for central government from 1990 to 1993. Try telling me public sector workers get more money than the private sector.

Pamela, Kent

This is an absolute disgrace, as a low level civil servant I earn a pittance compared to these executives but my colleagues and I are constantly told that we are overpaid, underworked and a drain on the economy, but it's our bosses that deserve to be made redundant in the upcoming public sector cuts, not the low-level employees who earn less in 15 years than most of these executives do in one year.

AC, Northern Ireland

As someone who works for the public sector and earns nothing like what the prime minister earns I find this article misaligned with reality. I, and the vast majority of public sector workers, am not in that category of high earners and it will be people like me that end up paying the price for poor media reporting like this stirring up the public view of the public sector. Part of my role involves protecting the elderly and vulnerable and bringing the crooks who rip them off to court. If I was in it for the money I would be doing something else because the private sector pays a lot more. Additionally wasn't it private sector banking mismanagement that got us into this situation in the first place and hardworking taxpayers money like mine that bailed them out?!

Stuart Hughes, Ipswich

I worked for the MOD about 15 years ago. In the end had to leave as I simply was not paid enough. My wife and I wanted to start a family and would have had to live very simply indeed in order to live on just my wage alone. I had gone to college and completed a HNC engineering qualification so that I could improve my income, but if I was promoted I would initially have lost about £1,500 to £2,000 income a year. It would have taken approximately two to three years to improve my income to more than I was on at that time. To have a child at that time would have been a hard and worrying slog. I decided to leave and join the manufacturing industry to improve my income. In the MOD they would say that the pension and job security would compensate for the low wages, but that promise seems to have gone. If you are a junior civil servant the wages are not spectacular and it seems the gap between the pay of senior civil servants and junior civil servants has widened.

Kevin Praties, Leeds