The BBC Radio 4 presenter Sarah Montague has said she was “incandescent with rage” and “felt a sap” when she learned she was paid far less than her Today programme co-stars.

Montague, who was a key member of the team for 17 years, said she was paid £133,000 and that it “was a very good wage for a job that I loved”.

The BBC revealed in July last year that the Today programme host John Humphrys was earning £600,000 to £649,000.

Nick Robinson is on £250,000 to £299,000, Mishal Husain is in the £200,000 to £249,000 pay bracket and Justin Webb earned between £150,000 and £199,999.

After initially thinking she might feel good for “taking less of the licence fee than others”, Montague said she “felt a sap” for “subsidising other people’s lifestyles”.

She also said she “hadn’t clocked just how professionally damaging it would feel” to know she was earning less than her colleagues.

Montague, who has now left Today to become the lead presenter of Radio 4’s World at One, wrote in the Sunday Times that she negotiated a better salary by using “the pay of previous presenters as a guide”.

Montague swapped her Today role with Martha Kearney, who was revealed last year to be earning between £200,000 and £249,999.

Montague wrote: “I had long suspected that I was paid much less than my colleagues but until the pay disclosures I had no idea of the scale of that difference.

“Some years ago I was even assured by a manager that I was not the lowest-paid on the programme.”

Montague, who began her BBC career in 1997 as a presenter on the BBC news channel and has since worked on Newsnight, BBC Breakfast and been a regular presenter of HARDtalk for 20 years, said she also learned that “the true situation was far worse”.

“Apart from John Humphrys, I was the only Today programme presenter not on a full staff contract,” she wrote.

Montague said she was told to “set up a company” when she joined the BBC, and had not taken in any benefits or accrued any pension.

“Because of that, the pay gap will last my lifetime,” she said.

Montague said she was looking forward to concentrating on her new job, but that it was “uncomfortable being in the spotlight” in her current situation.

She said “light, perhaps even total transparency” is needed in order for “organisations such as the BBC to restore trust among staff and ensure the accountability of those setting pay”.

The BBC published a list of its top earners last year, setting out the pay for staff on more than £150,000 and revealing a sizeable gap in the earnings of its best-known male and female presenters and actors.