THEY’RE in charge of Hampshire’s biggest companies and the futures of hundreds of thousands of workers.

And they’re paid accordingly.

But a league table of the earnings of the top bosses in Hampshire shows even these titans of industry are not immune to the effects of the recession.

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Across the region, the pay packets of the bosses of the top 500 companies fell by 10.6 per cent to an average of £420,233, down from £470,058 in 2009.

The average salary in the top 500 companies in the south went up by two per cent to £36,442, before tax, although the figure is distorted by executive earnings and the typical wage is well below that.

Former Saints chairman Leon Crouch is fourth in the Hampshire ranking of high earners with £1,151,349 and that’s despite taking a pay cut of more than half for his job as chairman of component manufacturer Lymington Precision Engineers.

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The boss of Basingstoke banknote printer De La Rue tops the pay list, which was compiled by H&H Outsourced Recruitment, with a recession-beating £2.3m pay packet – more than 124 per cent up on the figure last year.

Meanwhile Euan Sutherland, chief executive of Chandler’s Ford based DIY giant B&Q, comes in at number 20 with just over half a million pounds for his first full year in the job.

As he attempts to fight off a £1 billion takeover bid, VT Group boss Paul Lester, a previous winner of the Daily Echo’s Outstanding Contribution to Hampshire Business award, saw his pay stay level at just over £1m. Lisa Morgan, his successor with the honour in 2009, also saw her earnings from Basingstoke based Game Group stay just over the £1m mark, despite a seven per cent drop.

Elsewhere in the rankings, Ordnance Survey boss Vanessa Lawrence enjoyed a modest 2.6 per cent rise to £200,000. Wellknown city businessman Patrick Trant, however, saw his paypacket from his Trant Holdings empire dwindle by 14.1 per cent to £177,304.

John Gosling, a member of the Institute of Leadership and Management and a director of Hampshire’s TJ Waste and Recycling, said: “A large company can employ more people than a small town and the boss is responsible for every one of them paying the mortgage and putting a shopping bag on the table as well as for their welfare and the whole shooting match.

“You can’t just go home at the end of the day and go to sleep at night and forget about it. Your brain is going the whole time.

“It is right they should be rewarded.

“If it was that easy everyone would be doing it.”

■ Information is according to the latest audited accounts filed or made available by December 7, 2009. To qualify for inclusion a company has its functioning head office or registered office at which directors are based within Hampshire. A dash means the company did not provide information to enable the highest paid director figures to be calculated.