The report investigates the salary budgets, transparency and performance assessments of 500 businesses in the UK and over 50 countries globally in 2022 and their forecasts for 2023, alongside data on salary budgets, pay transparency and performance management.

The report found that surprisingly few companies published their pay ranges, uncovering the sectors that are the least transparent with salary ranges—prompting questions around why so many organisations are still not communicating pay practices clearly with employees and job seekers. 

Of the respondents; 59% of companies reported using salary ranges. Of these companies, only 24% publish them. 

Collected between 5 August and 9 September 2022, respondents were asked to submit data per country in relation to their pay review budget for 2022 and their forecasted pay review budget for 2023 as a percentage of base salary.

Salary ranges

The report breaks the data down by industry, identifying key differences between sectors. 

The education and public sector/non-profit sectors show the highest use of salary ranges at 86% and 88% respectively. Meanwhile, real estate/construction (36%) and logistics/distribution/ transportation (40%) are less likely to use them. 

Overall, transparency around salaries was low, with less than half of those using salary ranges publishing them. 

The charity sector was the most transparent with salary ranges. Out of the 64% of respondents who had salary ranges, 100% published them. However, tech was one of the least transparent. 

Whilst 63% of participating organisations use salary ranges, only 8% publish them. Media and arts, and retail were the least transparent. Despite 67%  of media and arts respondents using salary ranges, and 41% of retail,none of these organisations published their salary ranges,  

Founder and managing director of 3R Strategy, Rameez Kaleem, was thrilled at the record level of responses received for the survey, which has enabled his team to conduct their most comprehensive analysis of  pay transparency across global organisations and sectors  to date. 

“It’s not surprising that charities reported the highest levels of pay transparency. For many employees working at charities, pay is less of a motivating factor than it is for those in other sectors—and a greater focus on building a collaborative and transparent culture.. However, the low levels of transparency in some of the reported sectors—particularly tech—present a significant issue and raise further questions regarding the continued lack of pay transparency we are seeing on a global scale.’’ he says.