For years, the hiring process has resembled a guessing game: candidates trying to work out what a role might pay, employers trying to predict what candidates will accept, and both sides hoping they’re somewhere near the right number. Everyone operates with partial information. Everyone makes assumptions. And more often than not, both parties walk away feeling the process was inefficient, unclear, or unfair.
Employers and employees dissatisfied, desperate to understand what other were paying/being paid. Living in fear of equal pay claims and signing up for all sorts of weird and wonderful benchmarking tools, to get clarity or to challenge the salary that they accepted.
Pay transparency aims to end that guessing game.
Across the globe, legislation will be pushing employers to disclose salary information upfront. While the UK no longer falls under the jurisdiction of the European Union, this legislation is set to fundamentally change the way organisations approach salary benchmarking, reward strategy, and talent attraction. For any organisation wishing to trade globally, they will be impacted and it’s surely only a matter of time before the UK follows suit.
But transparency isn’t simply about posting numbers on job ads. It’s about redefining how organisations think about pay itself.
What is Pay Transparency, really?
At its core, pay transparency does exactly what it promises: it brings clarity to what organisations pay, how they pay, and why.
Instead of treating salary as confidential or a negotiation lever, transparency encourages organisations to articulate a clear, fair, and consistent reward approach. It’s designed to eliminate unexplained disparities, prevent future legal claims, and reduce the ambiguity embedded in today’s recruitment processes. It is there to remove inequity and tackle systemic problems that exist, when people try to pay those with protected characteristics less.
But it’s also about values. In an era where organisations champion fairness, inclusion, and trust, withholding basic pay information sends a conflicting message. Candidates expect openness, and increasingly, so do clients and partners. What does it say about your Employee Value Proposition. How many organisations claim to have integrity, to be open, fair, and transparent whilst simultaneously refusing to advertise salaries.
Even if UK legislation lags, global companies operating here won’t be able to avoid it. If you can’t meet the transparency requirements of an international contract, you may not even make the shortlist.
A flood of data, and what it really means
Many assume transparency will make salary benchmarking simpler. With more pay data in the open, the logic goes, organisations should find it easier to compare themselves to the market.
The reality is more complex.
More data isn’t the same as better data. In fact, the sheer volume of unvalidated information, from anonymous submissions to inflated self-reported salaries, risks overwhelming organisations. Benchmarking tools and AI scrapers may offer numbers, but not always accuracy, relevance, or context.
The shift towards transparency forces organisations to think more strategically about reward. It’s no longer enough to pull a number from a tool and declare it the answer.
Teams will continue to grapple with bigger questions:
- Do we want to pay at, below, or above the market?
- How do we balance base pay, benefits, and total reward?
- What differentiates our EVP when salary ranges become standardised?
- Which competitors truly matter for benchmarking?
- And most importantly: what impact do we want our reward strategy to create?
Salary benchmarking is becoming less about the data and more about the thinking behind it.
Moving from data - to insight - to impact
To make transparency meaningful instead of mechanical, organisations need a more sophisticated approach, one that validates data, interprets context, and connects insights to action.
At NFP, this aligns with the D-V-I-D-I model:
Data → Validation → Insight → Decision → Impact
- Data alone is noisy.
- Validation separates signal from noise.
- Insight reveals what the data actually means for the organisation.
- Decisions become easier when you have the insights you need.
- Impact is enabled when you know why you have made the decisions you have made. It helps make a measurable difference.
Transparency will broaden the information available, but the organisations that use validated insight, not raw data, will gain the real advantage.
The opportunity to differentiate
If every employer has access to largely the same salary data, benchmarking alone won’t create competitive edge. In fact, it may push organisations towards similar pay levels, making it harder to stand out.
The opportunity lies not in matching the market, but in interpreting it creatively and effectively.
Organisations can differentiate by:
- Being bold about their reward philosophy, not just their pay bands
- Looking beyond their usual sector to attract new talent pools
- Using transparency to highlight benefits, culture, flexibility, and progression
- Designing reward with intention, not imitation
- Validating their EVP
Transparency doesn’t level the playing field, it raises the bar. Those who approach it strategically will be the ones who excel.
What does success look like?
An insight-driven approach is:
Fair and Consistent - Reducing unnecessary differences and improving trust.
Strategic - Built on clear reward principles that reflect organisational priorities.
Data-Informed, Not Data-Led - Grounded in validated insight, not unverified figures.
Differentiated - Offering a value proposition that stands out, even when salary ranges become visible.
Globally Aligned - Prepared for legislative shifts already unfolding across Europe.
Scalable and sustainable – By removing the guess work and disparities companies will have greater foresight and confidence that salary isn’t the issue it has always been
This isn’t about compliance. It’s about building a reward strategy that can thrive in a new era of openness.
Ending the guesswork, raising the standard
Pay transparency isn't just a regulatory trend, it’s a catalyst for better reward decisions.
- It removes ambiguity.
- It improves fairness.
- It strengthens trust.
- And it pushes organisations to elevate their strategy.