The government wants to make you publish salary ranges in every job advert.
If this becomes law, you won’t be able to just stick “competitive salary” on a listing and hope for the best.
A consultation launched in July 2026 is looking at making this mandatory. It also proposes a new watchdog that can audit your pay records, and compulsory pay reviews for any employer caught paying people unfairly. The consultation closes on 27 October 2026.
Nothing is law yet. But this is heading somewhere and there are things worth thinking about now.
What’s being proposed
There’s a lot in the consultation, but here’s what matters most if you run a small business.
You’d have to include salary information in job adverts.
Either a fixed figure, a range or a benchmark rate. If there’s no advert, you’d need to give candidates the information in writing before their interview.
The exact format hasn’t been decided, but the principle is clear: candidates should know what a role pays before they apply.
A new watchdog is being proposed.
It would have the power to look into your pay practices, request your pay data and order reviews of how you pay people. It wouldn’t need to wait for someone to make a complaint first.
If you’re found to have paid people unfairly, a full pay review becomes automatic.
Right now, that rarely happens even when a claim is upheld. Under these proposals, it would be built in.
Equal pay protections would be extended.
Currently, equal pay claims mostly apply to differences between men and women doing similar work. The consultation proposes extending that to cover race and disability too. That means more employees could challenge you on pay.
Why this matters for you
If the law changes, the impact will go beyond how you post your job ads.
First, your existing team will see what you’re offering new hires. If someone on your team spots that you’re advertising their role at a higher salary than they’re on, you need to be able to explain why.
You’ll also need to know what the going rate actually is. If you’re guessing at salary figures, you’ll either pay too much or offer too little. Too much costs you money. Too little loses you candidates and could lead to a claim.
And you won’t be able to ask potential candidates what they currently earn. The consultation also proposes banning salary history questions. So, you can’t use someone’s current pay as a starting point for your offer. You’ll need to know what the role is worth independently.
What to do now
No panic needed at this point as it’s just a consultation. If any law does get introduced, it will take time.
But there are two things worth doing now, whether or not the proposals become law.
First, use seniority-based job adverts.
If a role could be filled by someone junior or someone experienced, don’t try to cover both with one advert and a massive salary range. Split it into two. One pitched at a junior level with a lower pay band, one at a senior level with a higher one. Your ranges stay tight, you attract the right people at the right level and you can compare candidates properly.
It’s smarter recruitment and it’s better for your brand as an employer. We’d recommend this regardless of what happens with the consultation.
Second, make sure that you can explain your pay decisions.
If two people are doing similar work for different pay, can you explain why? If pay has been set based on whoever negotiated hardest or whatever felt right at the time, that’s a problem waiting to happen.
Look at your current team, check for inconsistencies and fix anything you can’t justify.
How we can help
We help small businesses to get their pay in order before they’re forced to. That means looking at what you’re paying, checking it against market rates and making sure that you could defend every pay decision if you had to.
If you want to understand how salary transparency could affect your business, get in touch.