Fewer than half of surveyed UK HR leaders say their organisations have salary ranges ready for publication, despite government plans to make pay information mandatory in recruitment advertisements.
Research from IRIS Software Group found that 43% of senior HR professionals believed their existing pay bands and salary ranges were ready to be disclosed.
Although 89% said their organisations were at least mostly prepared for the proposed requirements, 11% acknowledged that they were not prepared. The difference indicates that broad confidence in readiness does not necessarily mean employers have completed the work needed to publish reliable pay information.
The government confirmed on 10 November that it intends to introduce legislation requiring employers to include pay information in job advertisements. Where a vacancy is not publicly advertised, employers would need to provide the relevant information in writing before interviewing candidates.
The proposals remain subject to legislation and have not yet become enforceable requirements. Ministers have said further details will be brought forward when parliamentary time allows.
The announcement follows a consultation on equal pay and discrimination that closed on 27 October. The government reported that 94% of respondents supported the proposed approach, including 93% of responding employers.
Recruitment transparency exposes internal pay differences —
IRIS found that employees were concerned about differences between salaries offered to new recruits and the remuneration received by existing colleagues performing similar work.
Among surveyed employees with between two and five years of full-time employment experience, 37% believed experienced junior staff should receive higher pay where the gap between their earnings and new starters’ salaries had become too small.
A further 36% wanted employers to review the salaries of existing staff performing similar roles before advertising a vacancy. However, only 24% of HR leaders said their organisations planned to conduct such reviews.
The findings suggest salary disclosure could raise internal questions about pay progression, particularly where recruitment pressures have led employers to increase starting salaries without making equivalent adjustments for established employees.
Differences in remuneration are not automatically evidence of unlawful discrimination or unfair treatment. Employers may have legitimate explanations based on responsibilities, experience, performance, or other relevant circumstances, but those explanations become more important when employees can compare advertised and existing salaries.
The research identified a similar difference in expectations surrounding pay policies.
Thirty-nine per cent of employees wanted clearer explanations of how experience, performance, and responsibility affect remuneration. Only 25% of senior HR respondents said their organisations intended to explain how starting salaries and subsequent progression were determined.
Meanwhile, 33% of employees wanted the opportunity to request a salary review, compared with 21% of HR leaders reporting plans to provide one.
Reliable workforce data becomes more important —
More than one in five HR leaders, 22%, said their systems and workforce records could not adequately compare advertised starting salaries with the pay of existing employees.
That creates difficulties where recruitment, payroll, and HR information is maintained separately, job classifications are inconsistent, or different managers apply different criteria when determining salaries.
Preparing accurate pay ranges may therefore require employers to reconcile job descriptions, salary structures, and remuneration records before introducing greater public disclosure.
IRIS chief people officer Stephanie Kelly has advised employers to examine their existing pay information before salary advertisements expose differences that have not been properly understood or explained internally.
IRIS commissioned Censuswide to survey 511 UK senior HR professionals and 500 employees with two to five years of full-time employment experience. Fieldwork took place between 30 July and 5 August 2026, before the government’s latest announcement.
The findings identify an operational gap between preparing recruitment advertisements and ensuring that the pay policies behind them are consistent, documented, and supported by reliable workforce information.
