Salary shortfall deters talent from ad careers.(advertisement)

Junior-level people working in Britain's advertising agencies are being paid substantially less than their counterparts in other fields - and the gap is widening further.

That is the verdict of a new survey commissioned by the IPA, which, the trade body claims, destroys the myth of an industry where exorbitant pay cheques are the norm.

In reality, the difference in salary levels between agency staffers and those doing comparable jobs in law, accountancy and marketing has increased in the past 13 years, the report says.

In the worst case, the pay between an agency job and its equivalent elsewhere differed by 63 per cent.

While the salaries of agency senior managers still compare favourably with their counterparts elsewhere, disparities at lower levels are huge.

At the most junior level, pay for agency beginners is between pounds 16,000 and pounds 18,000.

It is feared that the discrepancy will deter young talent from entering the industry. Neither are people in advertising being compensated for low pay by job security. The industry remains very sensitive to economic fluctuations and, the report points out, lost almost a quarter of its workforce between 1991 and 1995.