Fatcats at HS2 are all aboard the gravy train, with 916 staff earning more than £50,000.
It means nearly three quarters of them are coining it in as the project sinks deeper into the red.
The revelation comes after Boris Johnson promised to plough on with HS2 – linking London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds – which is now set to cost more than £100billion.
Figures released under Freedom of Information laws reveal that of about 1,250 staff directly employed by the project, 916 earned £50,000 a year in pay and perks.
News of the bumper pay packets comes 18 months after it emerged one in four HS2 employees were on more than £100,000 a year.
Some 112 people were receiving more than £150,000 annually and 15 had pay packets topping £251,000.
Last month it emerged HS2 chief executive Mark Thurston earned £625,000 – more than four times as much as the Prime Minister.
Joe Rukin, of Stop HS2, said: “It’s unbelievable that incompetence is rewarded so well at HS2 Ltd. It seems the only thing anyone who works there is good at is running their own gravy train.”
But an HS2 spokesman said: “In a highly technical project of the scale and complexity of HS2 it is necessary to employ the right level of expertise and knowledge to deliver the programme successfully.”
