Major European markets behind on salary transparency, finds report

With the June 2026 deadline for implementing the EU’s Pay Transparency Directive just weeks away, many large member states are at risk of missing compliance.

Pay remains the main driver of job search decisions across Europe, yet despite this, salary information is still frequently absent from job postings, despite a years-long, EU-driven policy push to increase salary transparency, according to a recent report published by job-search platform Indeed. 

Indeed’s research found that several major European markets are likely to miss targets set out by the upcoming EU Pay Transparency Directive deadline, which states that by June 2026, employers must have created an environment in which the discussion of pay is not shrouded in secrecy or otherwise restricted. 

When it comes to the rate of inclusion of salary information on jobs postings, several large European economies, such as Germany (12pc) and Spain (17pc), were found to be lagging significantly, in comparison to the UK (56pc), the Netherlands (48pc) and France (43pc).

Italy is the only country so far to have noted a sustained rise in recent months, jumping from 22pc to 36pc. In contrast, the UK, though not directly impacted by the directive, experienced a decline, as the share of postings mentioning salary dropped from almost two-thirds to just over one-half.

In the three years since the Bill was first established, Indeed found, many major EU member states are still legislating, noting that Germany and France are unlikely to meet the June deadline and the Netherlands has pushed implementation out to 2027. 

Ireland was found to be in the ‘middle of the pack’, with the new data from Indeed indicating that 39pc of Irish job postings feature salary information as of March 2026. However, concerns remain. 

Recent additional research on Irish SMEs and the EU directive, published by HRLocker, found that the level of “unpreparedness is systemic”, noting that just 14pc of contributors to the research “strongly understand” the directive, leaving around 300,000 “in the dark”.

Commenting on the results of Indeed’s report, Lisa Feist, an economist at Indeed, said: “With most large EU member states yet to pass national legislation, many employers do not appear willing to change their job posting practices. 

“Against this backdrop, the June 2026 EU deadline is less a hard trigger than a starting point for legislative processes that will play out across most member states over the coming months. Individual countries may go further than the directive and mandate upfront disclosure, but until they do so, the directive allows postings to omit pay.”

She added: “Until the introduction of a legal obligation, European employers will likely remain reluctant to adjust their job posting practices. Even then, the quality of disclosure is not guaranteed; some employers may respond by posting ranges wide enough to satisfy the letter of the law while revealing little about actual pay.”

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