Just had a little browse around on the net and the accepted wisdom is that a No.2 mechanic gets £30 to £45K, more senior technicians £45 to £60K and a team manager about £90k (from Yahoo answers & Louise Goodman's interview with Andy Stevenson of Force India) . You would assume the lower end engineers running the wind tunnel and CFD fall into the senior technician category.
Perhaps this is a way of Max controll the vast salaries the top boys pay themselves? Ross Brawn is reputed to be on £5 Million a year, Adrian Newey £2 Million and wasn't Ron dennis one of the highest paid CEO's in the UK although I suppose McLaren is more than just the F1 team (the assistant who sued him recently was on £32K a year).
So if McLaren have 700 employees and 350 of them earn and average of £40K thats £14 million. If the remainder of the staff earn double that we are at £42 million (ignoring the senior managers pay). Max's £40 million budget is blown before you even buy a wheel nut so you can see why these teams are so opposed, even £100 million would be tough to get down to from the current level of spending.