Pay transparency has improved overall but major gaps remain, according to new analysis of 2.8 million UK job ads by HR Datahub.
Despite strong performance among high-volume employers, one in four UK job ads still doesn’t include a salary range. The biggest shortfall is at the top of organisations with only 39% of director-level ads publishing pay information compared with 67% of frontline roles.
Meanwhile, Sodexo (99.6%) and the Co-op Group (99%) publish salaries on virtually all their ads and both report strong engagement and low staff turnover.
But transparency varies sharply elsewhere with the NHS posting salaries in 89.7% of its huge volume of ads, helping pull the national average up, while major retailers such as Lidl (77.5%) and Tesco (73.2%) sit noticeably lower, showing how uneven progress remains across sectors.
Mitie, a facilities management provider, had a salary disclosure rate of 54.5%. A spokesperson from Mitie says: “We continuously review our approach to pay transparency in line with industry expectations and best practice. Our business is complex, operating across diverse contracts with differing requirements, and in some cases, customers request that salary details are withheld due to market sensitivity or confidentiality clauses.”
Transparency also varies widely by sector with home services roles publishing pay more consistently while industries like mining and quarrying are far less open. Meanwhile, health and pharmaceutical is at 80.5% and finance and insurance is 70.8%.
Meanwhile, the EU Pay Transparency Directive, taking effect in June 2026, will require employers operating in the EU to share salary ranges with applicants, avoid asking about salary history and publish gender pay gap data for organisations with more than 100 employees.
UK employers are not legally required to disclose pay but many risk losing out if they do not. Gartner reports that 44% of candidates have skipped applying for a job because the salary was not shown, suggesting transparency is becoming a basic expectation.
HR Datahub’s salary benchmarking tool uses salary data from UK job boards to give companies insights into what they should be paying their employees to remain market competitive.
Co-op employer branding and colleague value proposition lead Matt Eyre says: “Salary transparency plays an important role in making recruitment fairer. At Co-op, we include clear pay information on all our job adverts because it helps candidates make informed decisions and supports a more inclusive hiring process. It’s also beneficial to us as a business, because we know we get more applications from a more diverse range of qualified candidates when we publish salary details.”
HR Datahub CEO and co-founder David Whifield says: “Transparency levels the playing field so that everyone, regardless of gender, race or class, has an equal opportunity to earn a fair salary. It also gives candidates information to negotiate a fair and equitable salary based on what the role is worth to the company, rather than what they have the confidence to push for or what they were previously paid. Companies that don’t embrace pay transparency will fall behind. Leaders should be thinking about ‘when’ not ‘if’ to make the shift.”
