A lot of people, I guess bruised by a LU strike or two, have got in their head the Train Drivers do nothing but press buttons.
I guess it's technically true, but so do Accountant and Bankers. We shouldn't live by this weird Victorian idea that the more physical your job is the more money you should be paid. The salary for a given role is determined by the value given to it by society which, although seemingly arbitrary, is entirely logical.
A typical example is how some complain of how Nurses (on an average of £35,000 per annum) are paid far less than drivers. Yes, but in order for a nurse to travel to work, a given nurse has to use a train, as do accountants, bankers, doctors, police, politicians, etc. Millions of people use the London Underground everyday with faults such as door catches costing TfL, and by extension the tax payer, around £70,000 per minute.
In short the value added by Train Driver's is disproportionate to most others because a Driver adds a disproportionate amount of value to our value chain