Over half (53%) of job ads on LinkedIn don’t include salary info in the UK, study reveals 

• Media and entertainment sector is the ‘least salary transparent’ as 84% of job ads omitted salary information 
• 84% of media & entertainment roles omit salary information, whilst 78% of healthcare and 73% of finance roles do 
• Lack of salary transparency is fuelling gender and racial pay gaps in the UK, experts say 
• Women earn 7.7% less than male workers, and minority ethnic groups earn 25% less than white workers on average 

A new study1 into salary transparency in the UK job market reveals many businesses are still reluctant to disclose how much they pay employees and prospective employees. 

The study of more than 4,000 live LinkedIn job adverts in the UK revealed over half (53%) didn’t include salary details, and that businesses in the media and entertainment, healthcare and even the finance industry are amongst the least financially transparent. 

The study by the HR resource, People Managing People, analysed live job adverts across the UK, from junior to director level positions, as well as across 24 different sectors. 

The sector most likely to omit salary information in job adverts is media & entertainment, where a large majority (84%) didn’t include salary details. The healthcare sector closely followed (78%), whilst over three-quarters (74%) of tech roles didn’t, and 73% of finance roles omitted salary details. 

The top 10 sectors that are the most likely to omit salary information in job postings are: 

Typically, junior level roles start from around £12,000 a year in the media and entertainment industry2, which is 28% lower than the national average salary of £42,210. 

David Rice, HR expert at People Managing People comments: “To keep people interested in ‘chasing the dragon’ of high wage punditry, it’s unlikely organisations in this sector will publicly disclose that a majority of people in the field are, let’s face it, going to struggle to pay their bills.” 

On the other hand, the top 10 sectors with the highest salary transparency are:

In the UK, jobs in London are the least likely to include salary information (74%), closely followed by Edinburgh (54%) and Bristol and Manchester (52%). 

Taking a deeper look into businesses in the regions that are the most or least likely to include salary information in the UK, those in Greater London are by far the least likely (72%) to do. Outside of the capital, almost half of the businesses we analysed in Scotland and the South East are likely to leave out salary details (45%). 

Previous studies show improving salary transparency has been on the agenda for businesses for some time. In 2023, a study revealed that 54% of UK businesses were considering disclosing individual pay ranges to employees3. 

However, experts are concerned about the lack of salary transparency that clearly still exists in the UK, and how it is continuing to fuel gender and racial pay gaps. The latest research shows women are paid 7.7% less than men in the UK4, and minority ethnic groups earn 25% less than white workers on average5.  

David continues: “There’s a lot of reasons why businesses are reluctant to share salary information, but it primarily comes down to the desire to create a competitive market and the fact that organisations have paid women less than men, and minorities not as much as whites for a long time. 

“It’s saved businesses a lot of money. By publicly defining what a role is worth, businesses signal how they value the occupant of the position but they also potentially drive away talent which have bigger salary expectations. 

“But, businesses can save themselves time by attracting people who are interested in the job, and knowing what they’re paying for it. This saves time in the negotiation phase, it ensures better buy-in from new hires and when people feel fairly paid, they tend to be more invested and more productive. 

“A big reason that needs to be talked about more is that trust between employers and employees/candidates is low. 

“At the end of the day, businesses exist to make money, but for too long it’s felt as if the benefit to the bottom line has come at the cost of the people who create the bottom line result. 

“By advocating for transparency and clarity in job advertisements, we can create a more equitable job market where candidates feel empowered to pursue opportunities that meet their financial expectations, and they are paid for the value they will bring to a business.”

For more information and to view the full study, visit:peoplemanagingpeople.com/employee-lifecycle/recruiting-hiring/salary-transparency-data

1Methodology 

People Managing People scraped 4,201 live job adverts on LinkedIn in the US, and 3,988 in the UK during August 2024. These were “paid for” jobs and any unpaid or voluntary roles were removed.

It then categorised these by geographical location and region of the hiring business as well as where the role is based (in-office, remote, or hybrid). 

To find the business sector and job seniority, OpenAI was used to identify these using prompts for the job title, company name, and job description. This was also used to identify if the role included salary information only within the job description, with further manual checks to verify the information. It then calculated the % of adverts that did and did not include salary information.

2https://www.prospects.ac.uk/job-profiles/magazine-journalist#:~:text=Salary,%C2%A318%2C000%20and%20%C2%A335%2C000

3https://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/content/news/majority-of-uk-companies-plan-increased-pay-transparency/

4https://www.statista.com/statistics/280710/uk-gender-pay-gap/#:~:text=Gender%20pay%20gap%20in%20the%20UK%201997%2D2023&text=In%202023%20the%20difference%20between,percent%20for%20part%2Dtime%20workers

5https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ethnicity-pay-gap-report-2022-to-2023/ethnicity-pay-gap-report-1-april-2022-to-31-march-2023