Sorry if I have missed you saying this but how long have you been in that role (I know you have been there for 3yrs) but is it a fixed term contract? Are you employed directly with the company or paid through someone else? Normally after you have been somewhere for 2 yrs you are deemed as having some protection under employment law so they can't just let you go and re-apply for your job, albeit a slightly different job description, its not as simple as that.
If you are a permanent employee I would have said it sounds very off. Changing a job description or reviewing a salary does not normally require you to “re‑interview” for your own role, especially when you’ve been doing the job for 3 years.
A few things to be aware of:
- If the role is genuinely changing, an employer can consult with you and offer a revised contract. That’s a negotiation, not a competitive recruitment process.
- If they want to advertise externally, that usually happens when they are restructuring or removing the original role — and they must follow a proper process, including consultation and potential redundancy.
- They can’t just make you reapply for your own job because you asked for a salary review. That would look retaliatory and potentially unfair.
- If the job is “substantially the same”, forcing you to compete for it is generally not considered reasonable.
I’d be asking them to put in writing:
- What exactly is changing in the JD
- Why those changes require a full recruitment process
- Whether your current role is being made redundant
- What happens if you don’t “pass” the interview
If they can’t give a clear, lawful reason, then it’s worth getting proper advice (ACAS is a good starting point). This doesn’t sound like standard practice at all.
In the UK, once you’ve been with the same employer for 2 years, you gain full statutory employment rights (unless you have been employed through a third party). That includes protection from unfair dismissal, proper redundancy rights, and the right to a fair process if your role is changing. So after 3 years, you are definitely protected. What people often mix up is this: having 2+ years’ service gives you rights, but it doesn’t automatically make you a “permanent” employee if your contract is fixed‑term. The contract type is separate. But regardless of whether you are fixed‑term or permanent, the employer cannot just make you “re‑interview” for your own job because you have asked for a salary review. If the role is genuinely changing, they must consult properly. If the old role is disappearing, that’s a redundancy process, not a competitive recruitment exercise. After 2 years, they can’t simply not “pick” you at interview, that would count as a dismissal, and they’d need a fair reason and a fair process. What they’re doing sounds very questionable.