While major economies like the US and the EU are advancing salary transparency by drafting and enacting relevant laws, the UK government has yet to materialise its vision to improve pay transparency in the job application processes.
Statistically, according to our latest research of 80 million job ads between 2016 and April 2023, the UK is de facto backtracking on salary transparency, with the country’s salary transparency falling to the lowest level in seven years. Just 51.5% of UK job ads disclosed salary in April 2023, down from 61.4% a year ago.
We previously flagged our concerns in a whitepaper where we spotted early signs of deterioration in August 2023. We continue to urge the government and employers to take immediate action to make salaries mandatory by signing our petition.
Top sectors that are getting more and more secretive
Here is an overview of the biggest movers and shakers on the salary transparency ranking.
Regrettably, the Legal (+4.6 pp) and Creative & Design (+1.2 pp) sectors are the only UK industries making progress on salary transparency over the past year, meaning more a higher proportion of their job ads now provide information on pay. The rest of the 25 sectors have been becoming more secretive when it comes to disclosing salaries within job ads. Alarmingly, salary transparency has slipped fastest in the Energy, Oil & Gas sector ( down from 50.9% to 33.4%), followed by Admin (down, from 73% to 55.9%), and Trade & Construction (down from 69.1% to 52.8%).
Why is this happening? Falling salary transparency suggests that employers may be capitalising on a tighter job market and using this shift in power to rein in salary disclosure and keep a tight lid on budgets when filling roles. Unfortunately, this can often mean frustration, stress and time wasted for those looking for a new job.
Read more: Why some employers don’t include salary in their job descriptions (and what to do when they don’t)
Overall, Retail is the most secretive sector, with just 26.8% of retail jobs including salary information in April 2023, down from 40.8% a year ago. The next worst offending sector is Scientific & QA (29.3%), dropping from 36.4% in April 2022. Creative & Design (31.1%) is the third most secretive sector. It’s a relief to see the sector is making progress. Small steps still count.
The most and least transparent regions
The West Midlands is the most transparent region in April 2023, with 55.6% of job ads including salary information. The South East (54.7%), North West (54.6%), and Yorkshire and the Humber (54.4%) came closely after.
Conversely, only 29.5% of job ads in Northern Ireland feature salaries, the lowest of any region, followed by Scotland (41.7%), Wales (47.0%) and London (49.7%).
It’s not too late for the country to pick up the pace, and you can help push this forward. Sign the petition now and make putting salaries in job ads a legal requirement.