Partners from PwC said they could not estimate how much the eventual bill would be for handling the affairs of the 27 firms presently in liquidation.

The revelations that each member of PwC staff is being paid on average £12,500 a week came as three senior executives from PwC were quizzed by the Business and Pensions Committees as part of their investigation into the collapse of Carillion.

David Kelley, partner at PwC, said it would not be until at least June before it would be possible to estimate the total final cost of the liquidation.

He confirmed that around 257 PwC staff were initially mobilised in the first weeks clocking up fees of over £3m a week, with around 112 now working on the liquidation leading to charges of £1.4m a week to keep the company running and to honour government contracts.

Kelley said 70 public contracts remained to be novated and said he was confident a very large number of staff would transfer over once this had been completed.

He added that so far for every 17 staff jobs secured three staff had been made redundant.

Of the original 18,100 workforce, 7,100 are still being paid to stay at Carillion. Kelley said 9,500 had now either found work outside the company or had migrated over to new contractors delivering services contracts. In total 1,600 have been made redundant.