Dive into the evidence

Helping to close pay gaps

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Making pay transparent during the recruitment process has been identified as one of the key ways to close the gender pay gap – this is embedded in guidance from the UK government, EU legislation, and state-level laws in the USA.

 

Including salary info in the job ad shifts the emphasis away from the practices of asking candidates to share their salary history or to give their salary expectations – practices which give the employer a bargaining advantage and can entrench pay inequalities. In the US, banning employers from asking about salary history has increased the pay of new starters – particularly for women and people of colour.

 

Where salaries are negotiable, providing a salary range on the job advert creates a fairer starting point for women and other groups who may feel less confident about negotiating their pay and/or face bias during the salary negotiation process. Research shows that negotiation bias perpetuates gender and racial pay gaps.

 

• In research conducted in the UK in 2021, 61% of women said that being asked about their salary history had damaged their confidence to negotiate for better pay, and 58% said that it made them feel as though a low past salary was ‘coming back to haunt them’. Source: Fawcett Society Equal Pay Day Briefing 2021
   

• This US-based study reports that pay transparency causes significant increases in both the equity and equality of pay. Source: The influence of pay transparency on (gender) inequity, inequality, and the performance-basis of pay, 2022 
   

• In the USA, research shows that banning the practice of asking about salary history led to an average of 4.1% higher pay for job changers – with the most pronounced effect on pay for women (a 6.2% increase in pay) and Black and Hispanic workers (a 5.9% increase in pay). Source: Perpetuating Inequality: What Salary History Bans Reveal About Wages, Bessen et al (June 2020)
   

• A survey of 9,000 professionals in the UK found that men are more likely than women to receive a salary increase after attempting to negotiate on salary. Source: Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Report: A focus on gender ED&I, Robert Walters (2023)
   

• This evidence summary from Harvard Law School provides an overview of US-based research into negotiation bias, and how race and gender intersect to influence outcomes in salary negotiations.
   

Driving more applications from a wider talent pool

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People want and need to know the salary so they can make an informed decision on whether the role will be a good financial fit for them and whether it’s appropriate for their career level – something that often can’t be accurately gauged from a job title or description of responsibilities. 

 

Research consistently shows that a lack of salary info puts a high proportion of people off from applying – people don’t want to potentially waste their time on applying for jobs that don’t meet their requirements.

 

• In polling conducted for the We Show the Salary campaign by Opinium in April 2025, 56% of respondents said they were very unlikely or fairly unlikely to apply for a job where the salary isn’t in the ad – with half of this group (28%) saying it’s very unlikely they’d apply (nationally representative sample of 2,000 UK adults aged 18+).

 

• 92% of charity sector employees say that having a salary listed as ‘competitive’ or not listed at all in the job description for a role would discourage them from applying for the job. This figure is trending upwards – in 2023 the figure was 89%. Source: Salary & Organisational Culture Survey 2024, CharityComms (March 2025)

 

• In research conducted by Reed in 2022, half of candidates said the terms ‘negotiable’ or ‘competitive’ would put them off applying for a job altogether. People from minority ethnic backgrounds were more likely to be put off from applying when job ads used these terms instead of giving a salary. Source: Why you should stop using ‘competitive’ and ‘negotiable’ salaries in your job description, Reed (2022)

 

Data from companies that provide job board or recruitment services also shows that including salary info consistently leads to more applications – most figures show around 60% more applications, but it can be higher.

 

• Reed reports that job ads with salaries receive 60% more applications – an increase of 33 percentage points since 2021. Source: Reed (2024)
   

• Before making salary info compulsory on their jobs board, Creative Access found that jobs with salary info received 66% more applications. Source: Creative Access (June 2023) 
   

• Coburg Banks found that adding salary info to job ads boosted applications by 61.7%. Source: Coburg Banks
   

• Before making salary info compulsory on their jobs board, CharityJob found that salary info received twice as many applications. Source: CharityJob (January 2021)