UK Ads Will Have to Say What You Pay. Your InMail Should Say It First

If your first message to a passive engineer still says "competitive package" and your first call still opens with "what are you on now?", both habits are about to look dated, and one of them may soon be unlawful. On 5 November 2026, Prime Minister Andy Burnham confirmed that UK employers will be legally required to publish salaries in job adverts. Separately, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has called for a ban on asking candidates about their past pay and their pay expectations.

What did the UK's "say what you pay" announcement actually say?

The government will legally require employers to publish salaries in job adverts, and has promised to bring forward legislation as soon as possible. Until the law arrives, Burnham is asking businesses to "say what you pay" voluntarily.

The starting point is patchier than most recruiters assume:

• 41% of employers always publish salary ranges in job ads (CIPD).
• About 18%, roughly a fifth, publish a specific salary (CIPD).
• 58% of UK postings on Indeed carried pay in the three months to June 2026, down from a 64% high in September 2024 (Indeed Hiring Lab).

The CIPD and Indeed numbers measure different things. CIPD asks employers what they always do, while Indeed counts postings. Either way, a large minority of UK ads still hide the number.

The detail isn't settled yet. Mishcon lists the open questions:

• Must employers publish a specific salary, or can they use a range?
• If a range is allowed, how wide can it be?
• Is it basic salary only, or bonuses and other pay too?

That last question matters most for engineering hires, where bonus and equity can make up a large share of total pay. A law that covers only base salary leaves a lot of room to look generous on paper.

Can recruiters still ask candidates their current salary in the UK?

Yes, for now. UK law allows the question, but candidates don't have to answer it. The EHRC wants the government to ban questions about salary history and salary expectations during recruitment.

EHRC chair Mary-Ann Stephenson and chief executive John Kirkpatrick have backed the ban, and the Fawcett Society and the TUC have made the same call. The argument is that salary history carries old pay gaps into new offers. Fawcett Society research found that 58% of women and 54% of men believed questions about their previous earnings had led to lower salary offers.

The EHRC position goes further than Brussels does:

So the current-salary question is legal today, may not stay legal, and already reads badly.

Why an expectations ban means the recruiter names the number first

If you can ask a candidate neither what they earn nor what they want, the only lawful way to get a number into the conversation is to say it yourself. That makes the figure in your first message more than a courtesy. It becomes the anchor for the whole negotiation.

Dropping "what are you on now?" sounds like a small change. But the EHRC wants to ban the expectations question as well, which goes beyond the EU Directive. Under that rule you can't make the candidate name a number first by any route.

Look at how most recruiters work today. They ask for current pay, add a bump, and build the offer from there. The candidate's number sets the anchor. The EHRC proposal takes that sequence away completely. Whoever writes the first figure sets the frame, and under the proposed rules, that has to be you.

If you can't ask the candidate for a number, you have to give them one. Make it the first one they see.

The job-ad law covers adverts, not InMails. But a candidate who reads a rival's ad with a pound range and then reads your message saying "competitive" will draw the obvious conclusion.

Should recruiters include salary in outreach?

Yes. Put a tight base range in the first message, say what it leaves out, and drop the current-salary question entirely. Here is how to do it well.

1. Keep the range narrow. The median UK salary range in job ads is 17% of the lower bound, something like £30,000 to £35,100. Scale that to the role. A senior engineer band of £90,000 to £105,000 sits close to that norm. A £70,000 to £120,000 band reads as a dodge.
2. Use a fixed figure when you can. Among UK postings that show pay, 32% list a fixed amount, the highest share in Europe. The EHRC also advises employers to publish "a specific salary or a relevant pay range." A precise number in an InMail reads as more credible than a wide band.
3. Separate base from bonus and equity. This is the same question Mishcon flags in the law. Answer it before the candidate has to ask: "£95,000 base, plus equity and bonus, details on a call."
4. Replace the salary question. Instead of "what are you on now?", ask "Is this range worth 20 minutes?" It gives the candidate an easy yes or no without asking them to reveal anything.
5. Only quote numbers the client has signed off. A figure you can't honour does more damage than "competitive" ever did.

A first message that does all five:

Hi Priya, I'm hiring a Staff Backend Engineer for a London payments company. Base is £115,000 to £130,000, plus equity and an annual bonus. The team is rebuilding its ledger. Is that range worth a 20-minute call this week?

That's four sentences, and the number comes before the pitch.

How big is the UK engineering pool you're messaging?

Refolk's index holds 72,364 UK profiles titled Software, Senior, Staff or Backend Engineer, against 32,318 UK profiles titled Recruitment Consultant, Talent Acquisition Partner, Talent Partner, Technical Recruiter or Headhunter. That's roughly 2.2 engineers for every recruiter profile.

72,364

With about two engineers per recruiter profile, a senior engineer at Monzo, Checkout.com, Gradient Labs or Samsara (all employers that appear in a 25-profile sample from the index, used here as examples rather than rankings) is not short of messages. Most of those messages look the same: "exciting opportunity," "competitive package," "quick chat?" The one with a number in the second sentence is the one they can judge without a call.

Once the law is in force, rivals' ads will carry a figure. Messages without one will look worse by comparison.

How to use rivals' published ranges as a sourcing map

Every range a rival publishes shows you what that employer pays new hires, and it shows that employer's own staff the same thing. That gives you two target lists: engineers at companies whose ads still say "competitive", and engineers at rivals whose new ranges may sit above what long-serving staff earn.

Holdouts are telling you something

Indeed Hiring Lab linked the fall from 64% to 58% to a cooler market, where "the incentive to compete on pay visibility diminishes." When employers have the upper hand, they stop showing pay. So a company that still writes "competitive" in late 2026 is often one holding back on pay. Its engineers are the people most likely to react well to a concrete figure, and once the law is in force the employer loses the option to stay vague.

Published ranges expose internal gaps

Mishcon warns that publishing pay will make "differences between recruitment pay and existing staff pay more visible." For a sourcer, that's a timing signal. When a rival posts a 17%-wide range for a role its current engineers already do, those engineers can now see whether new hires out-earn them. The weeks after that range goes live are when your message lands best.

The workflow

1. List the direct competitors for the role you're filling.
2. Record which ones publish pay for that role and which say "competitive."
3. Pull the engineers at both groups who match the role.
4. Time outreach to rivals' engineers for the weeks after a new range goes up.
5. Open with a number that clears the holdout's likely band, and say so plainly.

Step three is where the hours go. Mapping "backend engineers at these companies, senior or above, in London" by hand means a dozen Boolean strings and a spreadsheet. Refolk closes that gap: you describe the people in plain English and get a ranked shortlist back from GitHub, LinkedIn and the open web.

Tenure matters here. An engineer who joined three years ago at a lower band has the most reason to compare their pay with a fresh public range. Someone hired last quarter probably joined at the new rate.

Why Germany is the bigger opportunity for pay-first outreach

Germany has 39,277 engineers in Refolk's index, only 16% of its Indeed postings showed pay, and it has no approved bill to transpose the EU directive. A euro figure in a first message stands out far more in Berlin or Munich than a pound figure does in London.

16%

Indeed's earlier cross-country comparison puts the gap in context:

• UK: about 70% of listings showed pay
• France: 50%
• Netherlands: 45%
• Ireland: 41%
• Italy: 20%
• Germany: 16%

Germany is also behind on the EU Pay Transparency Directive. As of November 2026, only Italy, Slovakia, Lithuania, Malta and Greece have complete implementing laws, and most member states are still drafting. A German draft bill was informally expected to reach cabinet approval in October 2026. That hasn't happened.

The result is an information gap you can use. German engineers at companies like Helsing, Langfuse, dltHub and osapiens (sample employers from Refolk's index, concentrated in Berlin and Munich) mostly see job ads with no number. A UK or remote-first employer that writes "€95,000 base" in a first message is offering something the local market mostly doesn't. In London, the same move only matches what 58% of UK ads already do.

The UK pool is 1.84x larger, but German engineers see a number far less often. For a hard-to-fill senior role, the smaller market where your number is new can beat the bigger one where it's expected.

FAQ

Does the UK salary transparency law apply to recruiter InMails?

The announced law covers job adverts, and the final wording hasn't been published, so whether direct outreach counts is an open question. In practice, it hardly matters. Once every competing ad carries a figure, a cold message without one looks evasive next to the ads your candidate is already reading.

Should the number in outreach be a range or a fixed figure?

Use a fixed figure if the client will commit to one, and a narrow range if not. The median UK advertised range is 17% of the lower bound, and 32% of transparent UK postings already list a fixed amount. Quote base pay separately from bonus and equity so the number can't be misread.

When does the EU pay transparency directive affect recruitment in Germany?

Not yet in German law. As of November 2026, only Italy, Slovakia, Lithuania, Malta and Greece had complete implementing laws, and Germany's expected October cabinet approval didn't happen. Until it does, German employers can keep pay hidden, which is exactly why naming a euro figure in your first message stands out there.