If you want to make big money in life, the best careers to go for are (in descending order): trading, ‘general finance’ (AKA all areas of finance that aren’t trading or insurance), law, and…recruitment.

Based on pay figures drawn from clients of wealth manager ‘The Route’, the average top end trader is earning £1.5m, the average top end ‘general financier’ is earning £1m, the average top end lawyer earns £572k, and the average top end recruitment person is taking home a pleasing £477k.

Everyone knows that traders, bankers and lawyers are big money earners, but who are these wealthy recruiters? Victoria Jackson, business development manager at Route, says they’re mostly City headhunters.

Daniel Whomes, director of search to search firm The Ocean Partnership, says £477k is eminently possible for headhunters in the right place at the right time: “To earn that kind of money you need to be with the right firm, work the right market and have been building up a network of people for a number of years. The figure would be much lower at a contingent recruitment firm, due to fee size.”

Shaun Springer, chief executive of fixed income search firm Napier Scott, says £477k is the top of the market: “There are some people here earning that kind of money, but there are plenty more who aren’t. It's a commission-based industry so I'd love to be paying that out as an average.”