UK Firms Told to Publish Salaries in Job Ads Before Law Forces It

UK Prime Minister is telling firms to publish salaries in job adverts now, rather than wait for legislation that will make pay details compulsory — with the government promising to bring the bill forward "as soon as possible."

The push comes with hard numbers behind it. A Cabinet Office consultation launched in the summer into pay and reducing discrimination found "overwhelming support" for greater transparency, with 94% of respondents backing the move. The government frames the change as part of its attempt to reduce the nearly one million young people not in education, employment or training — so-called Neets — ahead of the final report of the Milburn Review into youth inactivity, due in the coming weeks.

"Whether you're a young person starting out or a parent trying to support your family, you should know what a job pays before spending your time and effort applying for it," Andy Burnham said.

What does this change for employers and jobseekers?

For jobseekers, the practical gain is straightforward: pay details upfront could, in the government's words, "expose unjustified differences in pay, give workers greater confidence to challenge discrimination and prevent disagreements over pay escalating into disputes." That matters most for first-job applicants, who currently have the least market information to negotiate with.

For employers, the calculus is more mixed. Data from UK jobs website Adzuna shows 51% of the adverts on its site in September carried salary information — but that proportion has been falling in recent years. Adzuna co-founder Andrew Hunter said being open about pay "should be the norm, not the exception," and added that employers who put a salary on a job advert "attract more applicants, and better-suited ones."

That's a recruiting argument, not a compliance one. If disclosure becomes law, the incentive flips: an advert without a salary won't just underperform, it may be illegal.

How does the EU comparison stack up?

The proposals mirror measures already being introduced in the European Union. Employers in Europe will have to disclose the initial pay or range for new roles — either in a published job advert or shared before an interview. UK firms recruiting across both markets will effectively face one transparency standard on both sides of the Channel.

Previous research from the CIPD, the industry body for human resources managers, indicates the public sector and charities are already more likely to reveal pay than private firms. Pay ranges are more common than specific salaries. But the CIPD found not all employers were "fully transparent" — with pay ranges sometimes stretching wider than £10,000, which is roughly the gap between a junior and a mid-level hire in many sectors.

Where employers push back

CIPD chief executive Neil Carberry said that while, in principle, giving salary details was "a good thing," in practice it was "more complicated."

"There isn't always a single fixed figure, and employers will want to set pay based on a candidate's skills, experience and potential," Carberry said. He added that drafting job adverts is "best left to good employer practice rather than government regulation."

The government has said it will set out further details on what information will be required and how the legislation will be enforced "in due course" — meaning the exact format, whether single figures or ranges, remains open.

The wider transparency squeeze

The move comes a week after the UK's equality watchdog, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), said employees should legally be able to find out what their colleagues are earning. The EHRC called publishing salaries in job adverts a "positive step" and said bosses should be required to respond to questionnaires about colleagues' pay to cut pay discrimination.

At present, employers don't have to respond to employee requests for salary information about co-workers. The EHRC also wants employers prevented from asking about current salary when offering a job, to stop a history of discrimination from carrying into new pay offers. Right now, UK employers are allowed to ask how much you earn in your current role — though applicants are under no obligation to answer.

Stack the three reforms together — mandatory advert disclosure, colleague-pay questionnaires, and a ban on salary-history questions — and pay opacity in UK hiring is facing pressure on every front. Firms that publish salaries now, ahead of the law, buy themselves time to restructure pay bands before a regulator does it for them.