UK ‘Say What You Pay’ Law: Job Adverts Must Show Salaries

Applying for a job in the UK often starts with a guessing game. You find a role that looks right, you spend hours writing an application, and only at the end of the process do you discover what it actually pays. Sometimes you never find out at all.

That is about to change. The UK government has announced a new law that will force employers to publish salaries in job adverts. Under the plan, known as the “say what you pay” law, no employer will be able to advertise a job without saying what it pays.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced the move on 5 November 2026, telling businesses they should start publishing pay details now rather than wait for the law to come in. The government says it will bring forward the legislation “as soon as possible”.

“Whether you’re a young person starting out or a parent trying to support your family, you should know what a job pays before spending your time and effort applying for it,” Burnham said. “That’s why we will make it a legal requirement for all employers to say what you pay.”

What the government has announced

The plan is simple: every job advert in the UK will have to include salary information. At the moment, employers are free to leave the pay out, and many do.

The government has not yet said when the rules will take effect, what exactly employers will have to disclose, or how companies that break the rules will be punished. Those details, it says, will be set out “in due course”.

What is clear is the direction of travel. The government has decided that hiding pay from jobseekers is no longer acceptable, and it wants the change written into law rather than left to the goodwill of employers.

The announcement was made as part of a wider plan to help young people into work. It comes ahead of the final report of the Milburn Review into youth inactivity, which is due in the coming weeks.

Why most job adverts hide the pay

The problem the government is trying to solve is bigger than most people realise. According to research by the CIPD, the professional body for human resources managers, only 41 per cent of employers always publish salary ranges in their job adverts. Only 18 per cent consistently publish a specific salary figure.

That means most jobseekers are applying blind. They do not know whether a job pays enough to cover their rent, their travel costs or their childcare until they are well into the hiring process.

Data from Adzuna, one of the UK’s biggest jobs websites, tells a similar story. In September, 51 per cent of the adverts on its site included salary information — but that proportion has been falling in recent years, not rising.

Andrew Hunter, the co-founder of Adzuna, said being open about pay “should be the norm, not the exception”. He added that employers who put a salary on a job advert “attract more applicants, and better-suited ones”.

The CIPD’s research also found that the public sector and charities are more likely to reveal pay than private companies. And even when employers do publish a range, it is not always helpful: the CIPD found that pay ranges were sometimes wider than £10,000, which tells an applicant very little about what they would actually earn.

What the change could mean for jobseekers

For people looking for work, the change could make a real difference in everyday life.

First, it saves time. If the salary is in the advert, a jobseeker can decide in seconds whether a role is worth applying for, instead of spending hours on an application for a job they cannot afford to take.

Second, it gives people more power in negotiations. When pay is hidden, the employer knows what the job is worth and the applicant does not. Publishing the salary levels the playing field before the first interview.

Third, and most importantly for the government, it could help tackle unfair pay. Ministers argue that salary secrecy has allowed unjustified differences in pay to survive — differences that often fall hardest on women.

Bridget Phillipson, the Minister for Women and Equalities, put it plainly: “What a job pays is rightly at the forefront of people’s minds when looking for work — it shouldn’t be a guessing game.”

Penny East, the chief executive of the women’s rights charity the Fawcett Society, welcomed the announcement. She argued that secrecy over pay had long disadvantaged women.

“For too long, salary secrecy has put women at a disadvantage, leaving them negotiating in the dark and making it much harder to challenge unfair and unequal pay,” she said.

The government says publishing salary details upfront could “expose unjustified differences in pay, give workers greater confidence to challenge discrimination and prevent disagreements over pay escalating into disputes”.

The consultation behind the plan

The announcement did not come out of nowhere. It followed a government consultation on equal pay and pay discrimination, run by the Office for Equality and Opportunity at the Cabinet Office. The consultation opened on 14 July 2026 and closed on 27 October 2026.

According to the government, the response was overwhelming: 94 per cent of respondents backed making salary information compulsory, including 93 per cent of businesses. That level of support from employers themselves is striking, and it helps explain why the government feels confident in pushing ahead.

The consultation was part of a wider review of equal pay law, which the government says needs reform. At the moment, the rules that are supposed to guarantee equal pay for equal work are difficult to use, and many workers find it hard to prove they are being paid unfairly.

Last week, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the UK’s equality watchdog, added its voice. It said publishing salaries in job adverts would be a “positive step”. It also said bosses should be required to answer questionnaires from employees about what their colleagues earn, and that employers should be prevented from asking job applicants about their current salary — a practice that can carry old pay discrimination into a new job.

At present, employers in the UK are allowed to ask how much you earn in your current role, although applicants are under no obligation to tell them.

What employers and business groups say

Not everyone is convinced that a new law is the answer. Business groups broadly accept that pay transparency is a good idea in principle, but some worry about how it will work in practice.

Neil Carberry, the chief executive of the CIPD, said that while giving salary details was “a good thing” in principle, in practice it was “more complicated”.

“There isn’t always a single fixed figure, and employers will want to set pay based on a candidate’s skills, experience and potential,” he said.

Carberry added that drafting job adverts was “best left to good employer practice rather than government regulation”. His concern is that a rigid rule could be hard to apply when pay genuinely depends on who is hired.

Other employers have made a similar point: for some roles, especially senior ones, the salary is negotiated around the individual. A fixed figure in an advert could put off strong candidates or lock the employer into a number that does not fit the person they eventually choose.

The government has not yet answered these questions. It will need to decide whether the law requires a single figure or a range, whether there are exceptions for some roles, and what happens to employers that do not comply. Until those details appear, businesses will be watching closely.

The wider plan to get young people into work

The pay transparency law is only one part of a bigger government drive to tackle youth unemployment.

Around one in eight people aged 16 to 24 in the UK are currently not in education, employment or training, according to figures cited by the Youth Futures Foundation. The government puts the total at nearly one million young people.

The Prime Minister has also called on businesses to help deliver 200,000 additional work experience placements for 14 to 16-year-olds. As part of that push, engineering company Siemens Mobility has pledged to provide 10,000 work experience opportunities over three years, offering young people an introduction to careers in engineering, manufacturing and technology.

The programme will create more than 3,300 opportunities a year. Siemens says it is also worried about a shortage of engineering talent: the company has warned that up to 70,000 workers could leave Britain’s rail industry by 2030.

Aglaja Schneider, managing director of Siemens Mobility UK and Ireland, said: “I started my own career as a graduate at Siemens Mobility, so I know first-hand how important those early opportunities can be.”

The idea is that work experience and pay transparency go together. If young people can see what jobs pay and get a foot in the door early, they are more likely to find work that suits them — and less likely to drift into long-term unemployment.

How the European Union is doing the same thing

The UK is not acting alone. Similar rules are already being introduced across the European Union, where employers will be required to disclose starting salaries or pay ranges to job applicants.

Under the EU rules, employers must disclose the initial pay or the pay range for a new role. That information must either be included in the published job advert or shared with the applicant before an interview.

The UK’s plan would bring Britain closer to that European standard, even though the UK has left the EU. For jobseekers, the effect would be similar: no more applying for jobs without knowing what they pay.

The comparison matters because it shows the direction of travel in many countries. Pay transparency is becoming the norm rather than the exception, and the UK government clearly does not want British workers left behind.

What happens next

For now, jobseekers should not expect to see salaries on every advert tomorrow. The government has promised legislation “as soon as possible”, but no bill has been published and no start date has been set.

The next steps are:

• The government will draft the legislation and set out what information employers must disclose, how the rules will be enforced and what penalties will apply.
• Businesses are being asked to start publishing pay details voluntarily now, rather than waiting for the law.
• The Milburn Review’s final report on youth inactivity is expected in the coming weeks, and it is likely to shape the wider jobs plan.

The Prime Minister’s message to employers was direct: start now. “Whether you’re a young person starting out or a parent trying to support your family, you should know what a job pays before spending your time and effort applying for it.”

If the law works as intended, the days of the mystery salary could be numbered. Job adverts that say “competitive salary” or nothing at all would have to give applicants a real number — and for the millions of people who apply for jobs each year, that small change could make a big difference.

Frequently asked questions

What is the “say what you pay” law?

It is a planned UK law that will legally require employers to publish salary information in job adverts, so jobseekers know what a job pays before they apply. It was announced by the government on 5 November 2026.

When will the law take effect?

No date has been announced. The government says it will bring forward legislation “as soon as possible” and will set out further details on scope, required information, implementation and enforcement “in due course”.

How many employers currently publish salaries?

According to CIPD research from 2024, only 41 per cent of employers always publish salary ranges in job adverts, and only 18 per cent always publish a specific salary. Adzuna found that 51 per cent of adverts on its site in September included salary information.

Who supports the change?

The government’s consultation found that 94 per cent of respondents backed compulsory salary information, including 93 per cent of businesses. The Fawcett Society and the Equality and Human Rights Commission have also welcomed the move.

What do employers say against it?

Some business groups, including the CIPD, say setting pay is complicated because it often depends on a candidate’s skills and experience. They argue that drafting job adverts is best left to good employer practice rather than government regulation.

Is this happening in other countries?

Yes. The European Union is introducing similar rules requiring employers to disclose the starting salary or pay range in a job advert or before an interview.

Conclusion

The UK government’s “say what you pay” plan is a simple idea with a big potential impact: tell people what a job pays before asking them to apply for it.

Most employers already accept the principle — 93 per cent of businesses that responded to the consultation backed it. The hard part will be turning that principle into a law that works for small firms as well as large ones, and for senior roles as well as entry-level jobs.

For jobseekers, especially young people starting out and women who have long paid the price of pay secrecy, the announcement is good news. The question now is how quickly the promise becomes a reality — and whether the details, when they arrive, match the ambition of the announcement.

Sources

• BBC News (via Qatar News) — “Firms told to publish salaries in job adverts ahead of new law” (6 November 2026): http://www.qatarnewsapp.com/2/article/2032/254560362
• The European — “Job Adverts Must Reveal Salaries Under New ‘Say What You Pay’ Law” (6 November 2026): https://the-european.eu/story-68702/job-adverts-must-reveal-salaries-under-new-say-what-you-pay-law.html
• GOV.UK press release — “New ‘say what you pay’ law to help young people into work” (5 November 2026)
• Marketing Stockport — “Government reveals plans for more young people to experience the world of work and for employers to ‘say what you pay'” (6 November 2026): https://marketingstockport.co.uk/news/government-reveals-plans-for-more-young-people-to-experience-the-world-of-work-and-for-employers-to-say-what-you-pay/

This article is for general information and education only. It is not legal or financial advice.