Some junior doctors planning to join a five-day strike could be earning over £100,000 a year, according to new estimates.
The group of clinicians, re-branded 'resident doctors' last September, may be making six-figure salaries working a 40-hour week, plus an on-call rota.
It comes after the British Medical Association (BMA) announced up to 50,000 doctors would stage a five-day walkout from 7am on Friday, July 25, as they press ministers for higher pay.
A Yougov survey commissioned by The Times found that almost half (49 per cent) of British people oppose the strikes.
Just over a third (36 per cent) are in favour of the mass industrial action, which is likely to lead to many routine appointments and operations being culled.
The same survey showed 54 per cent of respondents thought the BMA's pay demands of a 29 per cent increase in wages for resident doctors were 'unaffordable', while 43 per cent would back legislation making it illegal for doctors to go on strike.
The findings suggest public sympathy has dropped sharply since the last doctors’ strike between June 27 and July 2 last year.
Two of Britain's best-known doctors denounced the BMA's decision to take industrial action, with fears it could cause lasting damage to the public's faith in the profession.
Former health minister and surgeon Lord Ara Darzi, 65, told The Times: "Doctors have a special place in society. The public's trust in doctors is earned, not guaranteed.
"I fear it will never recover if the BMA go ahead with strikes that are plainly unjustifiable."
Lord Darzi's fellow Labour peer Professor Robert Winston, 84, said he resigned his BMA membership on Thursday in protest over the strikes, and he also warned of their "highly dangerous" impact on public perception of doctors.
He said: "Strike action completely ignores the vulnerability of people in front of you.
"Doctors need to be reminded that every time they have a patient in front of them, they have someone who is frightened and in pain. It’s important that doctors consider their own responsibility much more seriously."
NHS England outgoing national medical director Professor Sir Stephen Powis, also urged the BMA to consider its position, warning that "tens of thousands of appointments and procedures" could be axed.
On Friday, a BMA spokesman doubled down on the union's decision to take industrial action, saying resident doctors were "more than 20 per cent worse off" in real terms than doctors starting in the same position in 2008.
The BMA added: "We're sure that doctors who dedicated their lives to the health of the nation want to safeguard the profession and the NHS for the future.
"This means improving pay and conditions so that resident doctors stay in the health service and the UK to become expert clinical leaders, running entire services and innovating treatments.
"Doctors take their professional obligations incredibly seriously, and the decision to strike is not made lightly.
"But with nine out of 10 of our resident doctor members who voted backing industrial, it's clear that there is support for doing what is necessary to fight to restore pay.
"Of course, no strikes have to happen, and no care needs to be disrupted, if the Health Secretary meets with us to discuss the 'journey' to pay restoration as he so often called it in opposition."
