Thousands of U.K. Gen Z workers are likely trawling through job applications as we write, dismayed by a lack of transparency over pay in their current job and at the opacity of their prospective new employers. But all that may be about to change.
Nearly half of U.K. employers plan to follow a common practice from across the Atlantic Ocean by introducing salary ranges to their job listings.
Some 48% of employers surveyed by Mercer International Inc. said they would bring in salary information in the next two years, compared to just 17% now.
Employers have historically been reluctant to engage in salary transparency, fearing it could cause disquiet among current employees who may demand pay rises or fall out with their higher-paid colleagues.
Several U.S. states have enshrined laws that force employers to disclose salary ranges on their job listings, but the U.K. and Europe have lagged on these regulations.
However, amid a tighter labor market, employers appear partly motivated by a desire to attract the best talent and retain their current employees.
Last year, Adobe’s Future Workforce Study found that 85% of Gen Z workers were “less likely” to apply for a job if the salary range wasn’t listed in the application.
Gen Z are also much more likely to discuss their pay with their colleagues, breaking a long-held tradition of salary modesty among older generations.
“It seems like a really positive thing for employers to be doing,” Lucy Brown, a DEI and pay equity consulting leader at Mercer, told Bloomberg. “Employees who say they’re fairly paid are twice as likely to say they understand why they’re paid what they’re paid.”
Most of the respondents to Mercer’s survey said they were motivated by compliance issues, with the EU Pay Transparency Directive set to force stricter laws on employers. The EU will introduce the directive in June 2026 in an attempt to reduce the gender pay gap, which it said was partly motivated by opaque salary differences at the point of application.
The U.K., however, doesn’t have any guidelines on salary transparency.
More employers are planning to introduce global frameworks to align salary transparency policies across their offices, suggesting compliance requirements in one region serve as a much-needed nudge for employers to shift their practices to encourage retention.
While bosses’ perceptions of pay transparency have veered towards that of a divided workforce, studies suggest it could instead motivate employees to work harder, particularly those who realize they are paid more than their peers.
Meanwhile, employees have been motivated to seek new opportunities in the past thanks to the salary bump from job hopping. While the pay hike for switching jobs has fallen in recent years, current opacity over pay still inspires employees to make the change.
A Mercer study from last year found that employees who stayed put received a 5.6% raise, while those who left received an average 16.4% bump.
HR professionals view the desire to leave for higher pay as a question of fairness. They hope that more salary transparency will rebalance those perceptions.