Taxi driver Bob named as North-East's highest earner

The list, similar to the Rich List, but which ranks the country's top 500 people on their earnings not on accumulated wealth and assets, has Newcastle taxi driver Bob Frazer as the highest earner in the region.

Mr Frazer, the eighth-biggest lottery winner, had been working 14-hour night shifts six days a week before his £14.3m windfall.

Two other National Lottery winners, Deborah Purvis, also from Newcastle, and barmaid Barbara Forth, from Houghton-le-Spring, near Sunderland, also rank in the North-East top ten.

Other notable names included in the Pay List are Newcastle United footballer Alan Shearer, with £4m from his salary and endorsement deals, and Douglas Hall, a non-executive director of Newcastle United, who has earned £2.284m from salary and dividends.

Fellow Newcastle stars Lee Bowyer and Craig Bellamy just miss out on the top ten in the North-East with earnings of £1.75m each, placing them 11th and 12th in the region.

Sir Peter Vardy, who runs car dealership Reg Vardy, which was founded by his father, earned £12.2m this year, largely attributed to the sale of shares in the company worth £10m in July. He is second in the North-East and 61st overall.

A new entry to the list is Dave Charlton, who heads discount clothes retailer The Officers' Club, which now has branches across the country.

The Cramlington company paid him £2.3m, according to the latest company accounts, and he earned a further £1.1m in dividends.

Other entries in the top 500 are former Sunderland manager Peter Reid, now manager at Leeds United. He earned £1.75m, £1m which came from the pay-off from his previous job as Sunderland boss.

Duncan Davidson, the founder and non-executive chairman of York firm Persimmon, Britain's largest housebuilder, came 104th overall with earnings of £7m.

The earnings of Britain's highest paid people have soared to £4.5bn, a 31 per cent increase from the previous year's total of £3.4bn.