DERBY'S leading academic pocketed a 7.1% pay increase last year – putting his wage packet on a par with that of the Prime Minister.

The salary for Professor John Coyne, vice-chancellor of the University of Derby, went up to just over £186,000 in April – though he also received a pension payment of £24,000. Gordon Brown earns £194,250.

Nationally, vice-chancellors received an average 9% increase last year, with average pay being £193,970, according to figures published for the first time today by the Times Higher Education supplement.

In the same period, university academic staff received a 5.7% rise over the years 2006-7 and 2007-8, which gave them an average salary of £43,686.

University vice-chancellors said that the staff rises were "at the brink of affordability" for universities.

Lecturers and students' unions have criticised the vice-chancellors' rises, revealed in the same week that universities called for an increase in student tuition fees.

Sally Hunt, the University and College Union general secretary, said: "In a week when staff have been warned that any pay increases could lead to redundancies, it is rather distasteful.

"The Government and universities should not be surprised that everyone is outraged when university leaders call for increased fees and greater student debt."

The league table of pay-outs comes just a few weeks after it was revealed that the University of Derby had £7m in the bank at the end of the 2007-8 financial year.

Professor Coyne's salary increase still left him low down in the pay league table in 95th position, out of 120.

Top place was taken by the University of Nottingham vice-chancellor Sir Colin Campbell, with £585,000, including a one-off payment, £200,000 more than his nearest rival at Imperial College, London.

Sixty-three vice-chancellors received salaries bigger than the Prime Minister's and, in total, they were paid more than £30m.

A vice-chancellor's pay is settled by members of a university's governing council.

A University of Derby spokesman said: "The university has made its most significant strides over recent years and the increase reflects the improved performance and is broadly in line with the national settlement.

"Professor Coyne's pay reflects the skills required and demands involved in leading a complex, successful, multi-million-pound organisation.

"This pay rise relates to last year and was determined nearly two years ago. It should not be confused with, or taken as indicative of, the likely pay outcomes for the 2009-10 academic year."

Read more stories from the University of Derby