For years the unwritten rule was that you did not discuss salary, and the only people that rule protected were employers. The fog has been lifting - partly through the gender pay gap reporting that requires UK organisations with 250 or more staff to publish their figures each year, partly through sites where colleagues simply tell each other. Knowing roughly what a role pays is no longer a dark art. It is research, and you should do it.
Bands, gaps and the data that exists
Most large employers run salary bands - a defined range for each grade - even if they never volunteer them. Knowing which band a role sits in, and where in that band you fall, tells you whether there is room to move without changing jobs at all. The gender pay gap figures published on gov.uk will not tell you your exact worth, but they reveal something about how an organisation distributes pay and seniority, which is worth a glance before you join. Benchmarking sites do the rest: Glassdoor, Reed and Indeed all carry self-reported salary data, and while any single figure is noisy, the pattern across dozens of entries is genuinely informative. A mid-level marketing role in the regions might land somewhere around £30,000 to £40,000, the same role in central London noticeably higher - but treat every number as a starting point that varies sharply by sector, employer and exactly what the job involves, because two identical titles can pay thousands apart.
Ask for the range
When a recruiter asks your salary expectations, turn the question around: "What range has been budgeted for this role?" It is a fair question, increasingly normal, and it stops you anchoring yourself too low by guessing. If they will not say, give a range of your own rather than a single figure, and pitch the bottom of it at a number you would genuinely accept.
Worth is evidence, not nerve
Walking into a pay conversation armed with market data and a list of what you have actually delivered changes the dynamic entirely. You are not asking for a favour; you are presenting a case. Build it properly:
- Write down three concrete results from the past year, with numbers attached wherever you can put them.
- Pull two or three benchmark figures for your role and region, so your ask is anchored to something external.
- Decide your walk-away number privately before the meeting, because deciding it in the room is how people talk themselves down.
Transparency works in your favour - unless you skip the homework, in which case it just tells you how underpaid you have quietly been. Do the homework.