At least 1,000 staff at Cambridge University are earning below the "living wage", unions claim, around 20 times less than the annual package of the vice-chancellor.
Figures suggest some housekeepers, cleaners, waitresses, kitchen porters and gardeners take home the equivalent of less than £12,334 a year – the minimum wage for a 40-hour week.
At the same time, Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, the university’s head, earns almost £250,000. The average vice-chancellor is paid £219,000 but some earn more than £400,000, including benefits.
The National Union of Students published the figures as it launched a joint campaign today – alongside Unison – to highlight the stark pay differentials in British higher education.
They are lobbying for all colleges, universities and student unions to pay a “living wage” for all staff.
It has pledged to publish figures “naming and shaming” those universities that pay large numbers of staff below the minimum wage.
Cambridge insisted that the staff named in the research were trainees or those on "zero-hour contracts" who only work when it is available.
Dannie Grufferty, NUS vice-president, said: “There is clearly an inherent injustice in the average vice-chancellor getting paid more than 17-times more than a minimum wage employee on their campus.
“Colleges and universities are a community and everyone within that community needs to be treated with dignity and that means paying them a wage they can live on for their work.
“Employers at colleges and universities have six-months to get their house in order before we name and shame those that allow such shocking disparities to continue.”
The NUS and Unison published a breakdown of the number of staff working centrally for Cambridge and its individual colleges on less than the minimum wage.
But Cambridge insisted last night that its minimum pay levels have increased, with those on the lowest wages receiving a higher rise than those on upper pay spines.