Salaries in job adverts to become compulsory, with 94% backing the change in consultation

Prime Minister Andy Burnham has urged employers to start publishing salaries in job adverts immediately, rather than wait for legislation that will make it a legal requirement. The government said on Thursday it “will bring forward legislation as soon as possible”, though it has not yet said when the law will arrive or what it will contain.

Why the government says pay must be visible

Ministers frame the plan mainly as a fairness measure for people entering the workforce. Burnham told the BBC the current system feels “weighted against the applicant” and said the aim was “tilting the scales back”. He described the experience of young people applying for jobs with no listed salary, and sometimes getting no reply, as “soul destroying”.

The government also links the move to wider goals. It says upfront pay details could expose unjustified pay differences, give workers more confidence to challenge discrimination, and stop pay disagreements escalating into disputes. Burnham named the gender pay gap specifically. The announcement follows Chancellor John Healey’s Autumn Budget pledge to respond to calls for mandatory pay transparency and to tackle gender pay gaps at firms.

There is a youth employment angle too. The government presented the policy as part of efforts to reduce the nearly one million young people not in education, employment or training, ahead of the final report of the Milburn Review into youth inactivity, due in the coming weeks. Burnham said that “breaking down barriers is only one part of the job” and that businesses also need to “open more doors” for young people.

Consultation backing and the current picture

The Cabinet Office ran a consultation on pay and reducing discrimination over the summer. The government says it found “overwhelming support” for greater transparency, with 94% of respondents in favour.

Pay disclosure is already patchy and appears to be slipping. Figures from the jobs site Adzuna show that 51% of the adverts it carried in September included salary information, and the share has been falling in recent years. Co-founder Andrew Hunter said openness about pay “should be the norm, not the exception”. He argued that employers who list pay attract more applicants, and better-suited ones.

Earlier research from the CIPD, the professional body for HR managers, suggests the public sector and charities are more forthcoming than private firms, and that ranges are more common than single figures. It also found that transparency can be partial, with some ranges stretching beyond £10,000.

Objections from business and the opposition

Not everyone is convinced the law is the right tool. CIPD chief executive Neil Carberry called salary disclosure “a good thing” in principle but said it is “more complicated” in practice. He noted that there is not always a single fixed figure and that employers want to set pay according to a candidate’s skills, experience and potential. In his view, drafting adverts is “best left to good employer practice rather than government regulation”.

The Conservatives were sharper. Shadow business secretary Julia Lopez said that at a time when employers are finding it harder to recruit, the government was making their lives more difficult. She argued that, so long as firms are not dishonest, misleading or discriminatory, what they put in adverts should not be a matter for government.

Burnham was also pressed on whether MPs should lead by example, as a number of politicians currently advertise staff roles without an expected salary. He said the rule “would apply completely to them too” and urged them to disclose pay voluntarily.

The EU precedent and the equality watchdog

The proposals resemble measures being introduced in the European Union, where employers will have to give the starting pay or range for a role, either in the advert or before an interview. The EU rollout has been uneven. Amy Bird, a partner at Clifford Chance, has described implementation as “patchwork”, with some countries putting the rules in place and others delaying or not acting. The UK is not bound by the directive, but British multinationals with staff in the EU must still navigate it. That makes the bloc’s experience a useful warning for UK ministers drafting their own rules.

The announcement came a week after the Equality and Human Rights Commission called publishing salaries in job adverts a “positive step”. The watchdog went further, saying employees should be legally able to find out what colleagues earn, and that employers should be barred from asking candidates about their current pay. Employers can currently ask, and are not obliged to answer staff requests about co-workers’ salaries. The government has not said it will adopt those additional proposals.

What remains unanswered

The central questions are still open. The government says it will set out “in due course” what information will be required and how the rules will be enforced. Whether employers must give a precise figure or may use a range, and how wide that range can be, will determine whether the law changes much for jobseekers. For now, the prime minister is relying on persuasion, and on the prospect of legislation, to push firms to publish pay voluntarily.

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