Lecturers have voiced anger over calls to "exercise restraint" over their pay claims as new figures revealed large salary rises for vice chancellors.

Staff at the universities of Brighton and Sussex, who staged a one-day strike and began an assessment boycott this week to try and improve their wages, say they are shocked by new figures showing the universities' vice chancellors have received pay rises of up to 27.4 per cent in the last three years.

A survey by The Times Higher Education Supplement revealed the former Brighton vice chancellor David Watson retired from the university last summer on a salary of £169,425. He received a pay increase of 9.7 per cent on the year before, and a total pay increase of 27.4 per cent from 2001/02.

Alasdair Smith, the vice chancellor of Sussex, received a salary of £148,208 last year, up 3.4 per cent on the previous year and up 15.8 per cent since 2001/02.

Lecturers, academics and support staff at both universities got annual rises of about three per cent.

Members of the Association of University Teachers (AUT) and NATFHE, the college and university lecturers' union formed picket lines at campuses across the city last week.

Sussex university AUT president Jim Guild said: "While vice chancellors have lined their pockets with lavish salaries they have told us that we must have restraint in our pay claims. Everything they tell us about pay smacks of double standards."

A Brighton university spokeswoman said new vice chancellor Julian Crampton was on £150,000. A for Sussex university spokeswoman said Mr Smith's current salary would be published in the annual accounts.