A study into salary transparency in the UK job market has shown many businesses are still reluctant to disclose how much they pay employees and prospective employees. The study of more than 4,000 live LinkedIn job adverts in the UK revealed over half (53 per cent) didn’t include salary details, and that businesses in the media and entertainment, healthcare and even the finance industry are amongst the least financially transparent.
The study by the HR resource, People Managing People, analysed live job adverts across the UK, from junior to director level positions, as well as across 24 different sectors.
The sector most likely to omit salary information in job adverts is media & entertainment, where a large majority (84 per cent) didn’t include salary details. The healthcare sector closely followed (78 per cent), whilst over three-quarters (74 per cent) of tech roles didn’t, and 73 per cent of finance roles omitted salary details.
Typically, junior level roles start from around £12,000 a year in the media and entertainment industry, which is 28 per cent lower than the national average salary of £42,210.
David Rice, HR expert at People Managing People comments: “To keep people interested in ‘chasing the dragon’ of high wage punditry, it’s unlikely organisations in this sector will publicly disclose that a majority of people in the field are, let’s face it, going to struggle to pay their bills.”
In the UK, jobs in London are the least likely to include salary information (74 per cent), closely followed by Edinburgh (54 per cent) and Bristol and Manchester (52 per cent).
Taking a deeper look into businesses in the regions that are the most or least likely to include salary information in the UK, those in Greater London are by far the least likely (72 per cent) to do. Outside of the capital, almost half of the businesses we analysed in Scotland and the South East are likely to leave out salary details (45 per cent).
Previous studies show improving salary transparency has been on the agenda for businesses for some time. In 2023, a study revealed that 54 per cent of UK businesses were considering disclosing individual pay ranges to employees.
However, experts are concerned about the lack of salary transparency that clearly still exists in the UK, and how it is continuing to fuel gender and racial pay gaps. The latest research shows women are paid 7.7 per cent less than men in the UK, and minority ethnic groups earn 25 per cent less than white workers on average.
David continues: “There’s a lot of reasons why businesses are reluctant to share salary information, but it primarily comes down to the desire to create a competitive market and the fact that organisations have paid women less than men, and minorities not as much as whites for a long time.
“It’s saved businesses a lot of money. By publicly defining what a role is worth, businesses signal how they value the occupant of the position but they also potentially drive away talent which have bigger salary expectations.
“But, businesses can save themselves time by attracting people who are interested in the job, and knowing what they’re paying for it. This saves time in the negotiation phase, it ensures better buy-in from new hires and when people feel fairly paid, they tend to be more invested and more productive.
“A big reason that needs to be talked about more is that trust between employers and employees/candidates is low.
“At the end of the day, businesses exist to make money, but for too long it’s felt as if the benefit to the bottom line has come at the cost of the people who create the bottom line result.
“By advocating for transparency and clarity in job advertisements, we can create a more equitable job market where candidates feel empowered to pursue opportunities that meet their financial expectations, and they are paid for the value they will bring to a business.”
For more information and to view the full study, visit : https://peoplemanagingpeople.com/employee-lifecycle/recruiting-hiring/salary-transparency-data/
