Neverland has launched Equal for Equals, an industry wide pledge designed to improve pay transparency and build greater trust around how creative agencies reward their employees.
The independent brand strategy and creative agency is inviting UK agencies to commit to six practical principles covering role clarity, internal salary ranges, promotion criteria, pay checks for new hires, confidential challenge routes, and annual measurement.
The pledge has been developed against a backdrop of rising employee expectations around pay transparency. Neverland said the initiative began through the lens of gender pay equality but broadened after the agency reviewed its own progress on gender and ethnicity pay gaps.
Acas research published in 2024 found that 36% of women believed they were being paid less than a male colleague doing an equivalent role, while 72% said pay transparency was what they valued most when deciding whether to stay with or join an organisation. Campaign’s industry talent survey found that only 14% of employees believed their employer was transparent about salaries by making pay bands available.
The pledge is built around the principle that employees should understand how pay decisions are made and have confidence they are being treated fairly, regardless of background.
The six principles state that every role should be clearly defined; everyone should know the salary range for their role; progression should happen against a clear timetable and transparent criteria; new appointments should prompt a review of salaries for existing employees at the same level; employees should have a clear and confidential route to challenge pay concerns; and agencies should review their pay practices annually, share findings with teams, and outline improvement actions.
Josh Harris, chief executive of Neverland, said: “Trust is built when people understand how decisions are made and believe those decisions are fair, and so it’s telling that so many people are looking elsewhere to understand what they should be paid. While most agencies comply with equal pay legislation, the data shows many employees still aren’t convinced the system works for them.
“We’re not claiming to have all the answers, but we do believe the industry can set a higher standard. Equal for Equals is about creating a practical framework that agencies of any size can adopt to make pay more transparent and easier to understand. We hope others will join us because meaningful change only happens when it becomes something the industry does together.”
The launch comes as pay governance remains under scrutiny across the wider economy. Reward, transparency, and social licence have returned to the centre of governance debate as executive pay ratios widen again.
Agency pay transparency has its own sector specific pressures. Creative businesses often rely on role titles that vary between agencies, informal progression routes, project based demands, and negotiation at hiring. Those features can make pay decisions harder to understand and easier to mistrust, particularly when employees compare roles across the industry.
Salary transparency can also expose structural problems. If pay bands are published internally, agencies need to explain why people sit at different points within them. If promotion criteria are clarified, managers need to apply them consistently. If new hires trigger salary reviews, businesses must be ready to correct compression where external market rates have moved faster than internal pay.
Equal for Equals will require more than public support if agencies adopt it seriously. The principles depend on job architecture, pay governance, manager training, benchmarking, and employee communication. Smaller agencies may find that challenging, but clearer structures can also support growth by reducing ambiguity as teams expand.
The pledge also reflects the competition for talent in marketing and creative services. Agencies are managing pressure from in house teams, consultancies, platform companies, freelance models, and AI enabled production tools. Pay transparency alone will not solve retention, but it can reduce suspicion where employees do not understand how reward decisions are made.
There is a commercial dimension. Agencies sell strategy, trust, culture, and creativity to clients. Internal pay opacity can weaken employee confidence and make it harder to sustain the collaborative culture on which creative output depends. Clearer pay structures can support career development, reduce avoidable disputes, and improve management discipline.
The initiative lands as the EU Pay Transparency Directive continues to influence employer expectations beyond the bloc. UK employers are not automatically subject to all EU requirements unless they operate in relevant jurisdictions, but multinational clients, European teams, and candidate expectations are already raising the standard for pay clarity.
Neverland’s pledge gives agencies a framework rather than a legal mechanism. Its impact will depend on how many agencies adopt it and whether annual measurement produces visible changes. Pay decisions are becoming harder to defend when employees cannot see the structure behind them.
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