Government proposes salary disclosure in job adverts, with no commencement date
The Government announced plans on 5 November 2026 to require salary information in job advertisements. Legislation is to follow, with scope, required information, implementation and enforcement still to be detailed. The announcement does not bring a new statutory advertising requirement into force.
A policy announcement rather than a commenced duty
The Government announced plans on 5 November 2026 to make publishing salary information in job advertisements a legal requirement. Its announcement said legislation would be brought forward as soon as possible. It did not provide a commencement date, and it expressly left further details on scope, required information, implementation and enforcement to be explained later.
That distinction is the central legal point. The announcement identifies the Government's intended direction, but it does not itself place employers under the proposed new statutory requirement. Reports that employers must now include salaries in every advert would go beyond what was announced. Equally, the absence of a commencement date does not make the policy insignificant: it gives employers a reason to examine how pay information is approved and communicated.
What the announcement says
The stated objective is to ensure that jobseekers know what a role pays before investing time in an application. The Government particularly highlighted young people entering work and the potential disadvantages faced by women when they have to negotiate without knowing the employer's pay expectations.
The announcement referred to estimates that 41% of employers always publish salary ranges and 18% always publish specific salaries. These figures describe employer practices, not the proportion of all adverts containing pay information. They should not be converted into an estimate about the entire vacancy market without a separate evidential basis.