UK employers urged to publish salaries in job adverts before new law

The UK government wants employers to start including salary details in job adverts now, ahead of legislation that would make disclosure compulsory. Prime Minister Andy Burnham says the change could save jobseekers time and help expose unjustified pay differences.

The government says it will bring forward legislation “as soon as possible”, but has yet to set out what employers must disclose or how the rules will be enforced. It says 94% of respondents to a summer consultation supported greater pay transparency.

Burnham said applicants should know what a job pays before investing time and effort in applying. The government has also linked the proposal to efforts to address the nearly one million young people not in education, employment or training, ahead of a report on youth inactivity expected in the coming weeks.

Adzuna, a UK jobs website, found that 51% of adverts on its site included salary information in September, although the proportion has been falling in recent years. Its co-founder, Andrew Hunter, said openness about pay should be the norm and that adverts stating a salary attracted more applicants who were better suited to the role.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), which represents human resources professionals, supports transparency in principle but says setting pay can be complicated. Chief executive Neil Carberry said employers may want to take account of candidates’ skills, experience and potential, and argued that pay details in adverts should be left to employers rather than regulated.

The government’s proposal follows a call last week from the Equality and Human Rights Commission for salaries to be published in job adverts. The watchdog also wants employers to answer staff questions about colleagues’ pay and to be barred from asking applicants about their current salary.

Employers in the UK can ask candidates what they earn now, but applicants are not obliged to answer. The planned law would introduce a new requirement to publish pay information; the government has not yet specified its scope or timetable.