More job seekers in the UK feel salaries advertised in job ads fall short of their expectations than exceed them, new figures show.
The insights come from Employment Hero’s SME Pulse survey, conducted by GWI across three monthly waves in May, June and July 2026, questioning 600 UK adults aged 18 and over who are classified as “job seekers” (either job hunting or open to a new role).
Employment Hero’s quarterly data shows 20% of respondents believe salaries for advertised roles are below their expectations, against 13% who consider them to be above their expectations, while the majority (52%) say job ad salaries meet their expectations.
Separately, UK ministers are considering how best to improve pay transparency in the job market. As part of broader efforts to prevent pay discrimination, the Office for Equality and Opportunity launched a consultation “on measures designed to proactively prevent pay discrimination, ensure enforcement agencies are empowered to drive good practice, and simplify the resolution of disputes when they arise”.
Although the consultation process won’t close until October, a statutory requirement to disclose salary ranges could mean those who don’t consider advertised salaries adequate will see that mismatch between expectation and offer made more explicit.
Why Employees Want to Leave
Employment Hero’s data also shows higher pay was the single most cited reason for respondents’ desire to change jobs at 55%, more than any other motivation including lack of job security (31%), flexibility (24%) and burnout, workload and stress (22%). The second most cited incentive to change jobs was career growth (37%),
These findings don’t just shed light on why employees want to leave their roles, but their experience of the jobs market more broadly, too. In fact, 43% of respondents said that they consider jobs hard to find, against 29% who say plenty are available. Other reports reflect similar impressions about the hiring slowdown and its impact on wages. According to Indeed Hiring Lab’s mid-year UK jobs report, for example, job listings are down 11% since the start of 2026 as well as being 32% below their pre-pandemic baseline.
The CIPD’s August Labour Market Outlook describes similarly complex conditions from the employer side. Only 26% of employers expect staffing levels to increase over the next quarter, while 17% expect a decrease, and median expected basic pay increases have held at 3% for more than two years. The CIPD warned that if inflation keeps rising, real pay growth could turn negative.
James Cockett, CIPD’s senior labour market economist, said the UK labour market had “largely stopped moving,” calling it a “low hire, low fire” environment that is “increasingly looking like a ‘new normal.’”
How Job Scarcity Is Shaping the UK Job Market in 2026
The national data backs up what job seekers report, too. UK job vacancies fell to 707,000 in the three months to July, their lowest level in five years, according to the Office for National Statistics, driven mainly by small businesses citing labour and operating costs as reasons to pause hiring or leave posts unfilled.
Meanwhile, regular pay growth across Great Britain, excluding bonuses, held at 3.5% in the same three months, and private sector pay growth alone slowed to 2.8%, its weakest rate since October 2020.
Why Salary Expectations in the UK Are Running Ahead of Job Ads
With Employment Hero’s figures showing job seekers are increasingly finding advertised salaries fall short of their expectations, whether a job ad discloses a salary at all is becoming as important to candidates as the salary itself. Research reported by People Management in March 2026 found 80% of candidates won’t apply for a role that doesn’t disclose a salary at all.
For businesses setting pay bands for the rest of 2026, vacancies are at a five-year low, private sector pay growth is at its weakest in nearly six years, and Employment Hero’s data show candidates already expect more than employers are currently advertising.
