AIBU to expect job adverts to include salary ranges upfront?

You must recognise the difference in men and women in these situations and how women will no doubt be disproportionately worse off. How on earth can you ensure fairness in a process like that. I also find it very odd that you’d have a £30,000 differential, surely you firstly quantify the value of the job itself, maybe it’s different in a profiteering industry.

Yeah, that would be awful.

But it's not analogous to me advertising for a position in my team that could be filled by someone I might want to pay £50k and someone we'd stretch to maybe £85k for. I'm not standing over them with a contract. We're having a professional conversation.

I interviewed someone yesterday who I am considering offering a job to. I asked about her salary expectations. She told me her current salary (which she, of course, could be lying about). She's moving from a position which isn't directly comparable to the one I'm hiring for but, even so, if we hire her, she'll start on an increased salary to what she said. She's free to negotiate and doesn't have to take the job. She's not some helpless participant in the process.

Yes, and so we pay genuinely competitive salaries for our industry and region. There's no automatic link between following our industry-standard practice of asking employees for their salary requirements and paying insulting rock bottom wages. I wouldn't stay in my own job of I was being paid insulting rock bottom wages

Imagine companies wanting to be taken seriously as honourable, respectable firms... yet routinely employing basically the same tactics (only in reverse) as the rip-off merchants who prey on elderly people by showing them all of the products they offer and refusing to give any prices until they've invested hours of time and energy, before finally hitting them with a staggeringly enormous price - and also pressuring them to agree now without having a chance to compare them with the prices of reputable other suppliers!

There's a big difference between paying a fair wage - and also one that will help with employee loyalty and retention - and rock bottom insulting 'behave yourself' salaries.

Surely you would approach it like all company costs. Take computers for example - you wouldn't splash out for mega high end gaming rigs for all of your office workers; but neither would you buy 15yo laptops from a dodgy stall on the market selling them for a tenner a pop.

Exactly
And it suggests and organisation that doesn't have transparency and fairness as core values

I dont apply if they don't list the salary/range.

Putting a salary on a CV is irrelevant if the company doesn’t have the budget to pay that salary, or equally it allows them to sift them and pay the lowest they can get away with.

Very few jobs need just a CV to apply, they want questions answering and a starter writing etc - no point spending time doing those things if you know they want to pay lower.

I’ve also noticed in my industry, the job descriptions and expectations match what I’m doing now at half the salary!

I found this too, even within the same industry salary levels were wildly different, so it’s not as easy as applying for a role with a specific title with the expectation of what it would pay, a lot of places are paying an absolute pittance for jobs with very senior sounding titles!

I applied for a role quite recently where it was ambiguous from the description as to the seniority level. Had it given a salary bracket that would have been much clearer and I wouldn't have bothered applying. Not putting a salary range must mean they have to sift through more candidates who are inappropriate for the role. Such a waste of everyone's time.

yes exactly - one should only expect a salary to be on a job description if one is prepared to put their salary on their CV and lots of people do not want to do that.

It’s the candidates who need to put in the time and effort in to applying for a job, of course they need to have visibility of what they’re applying for.

Have you applied for many jobs recently? It’s so ridiculously time consuming, if the salary is too low I’d look elsewhere.

It’s not the same as staying your salary on your CV, because the company recruiting are the ones who know what budget they have to pay someone.

I’ve been job hunting recently, it turns out my employer is a rather generous payer! However, they’ve made me redundant. I’ve applied for 3 jobs where I’ve been turned down a my salary is too high, no conversation or discussion.

ive actually taken a role at a substantial pay cut because I feel I will be happy, I can make a difference, work my way up and the hours and basis suit me.

The company were up front about salary happy to pay the top of band and really appreciate me bringing a high level of experience. I already feel valued.

transparency would be appreciated in job adverts!

I’ve also noticed in my industry, the job descriptions and expectations match what I’m doing now at half the salary!

Please put me in touch with the employers who want to pay over the odds for their staff.

Why shouldn’t salary be on the job description?

What’s the point of not telling candidates the minimum?

It’s a waste of everyone’s time, if I’m currently earning £50k I only want to apply for a job earning more than that, if the salary isn’t discussed until I’ve already got an interview and it turns out they can only pay £40k we’ve all wasted our time.

Especially when you’re asked to ‘state salary expectations’. 🙄

Especially as that tired old ‘don’t mention pay or holidays’ interview rule still seems to be floating around in 2026.

I've literally never been asked this and I've been a civil servant for over 5 years

Isn't that the point at which they usually follow the spiel with an offer of about 40p above minimum wage?

Yes I think it works both ways. I'd do the same as you - and there are of course lots of employers who do put the salary on the JD. I'd bet money most people on here who wouldn't dream of putting their salary on their CV though, and would expect an employer to put what they were willing to pay

EU countries will be required to post salary ranges on job adverts from June this year, as part of the EU Pay Transparency directive.

YABU.

On the grounds that that role is an instant "no" from me. If they don't have the courtesy and transparency to cite the salary then what else is wrong with them?

Re pp, I am fine with salary range (though 50-80k is really too broad IMHO. Wouldn't rule out applying though).

It basically says, we want to get an appropriate candidate as cheaply as we can.

How is minimum wage ‘competitive’? Who are they competing with? Illegal employers?

I went all the way to being offered a job before they told me the holidays were the legal minimum. I think it was 20 days and bank holidays. They said it was a global policy and they couldn’t change it. Which explained why they’d been recruiting unsuccessfully for 2 years as my industry average is about 10 more days a year than that. Straight no, obviously. Wasted everyone’s time all around.

I don’t think that’s the same. I would put salary expectations if I was publishing my CV widely and saying “does anyone have a job for me”.