I’ve been calling out job and consultancy ads on LinkedIn that don’t include salary or budget ranges – not to be awkward, but because of the very real (often unintended) impact it has on equity. I saw @Wayan Vota highlight this a while back and it struck a chord.

But doing it sporadically, ad hoc, doesn’t feel quite right. It can seem inconsistent, even personal – and let’s be honest, when you’re one of the few speaking up, it can feel a bit risky (I’d rather not end up blacklisted by anyone!)

So, time to be more systematic – a short article that clearly sets out the reasons – with some supporting evidence – that I can link to every time I call out an ad. I’m actively encouraging others to do the same whenever you spot one. Why?

• The more of us who speak up, the stronger the pressure for change;
• More eyes will spot more examples;
• Safety in numbers.
  Don’t leave a few on a limb risking reputational damage – if we all call it out, it de-risks it!

This article explains why salary and budget secrecy is fundamentally an equity issue, the harms it causes, and what I believe organisations should be doing differently.

In researching it, I found plenty of hard evidence around salary transparency – and far less around consulting rates or project budgets. But as @Ronda Zelezny-Green highlights: “The vast amount of anecdotal evidence says enough for me.” I wholeheartedly agree!

Why the equity context is so critical in aid/development

We demand transparency from partners, governments, local implementers organisations, but when it comes to our own pay structures and procurement budgets? All too often – silence.  For organisations that champion equity and localisation, hiding this most basic power information is institutional hypocrisy.

This is far from a new argument. For decades, people have pointed out how salary and budget secrecy advantages insiders, disadvantages women and minority groups, and actively discriminates against candidates and consultants from LMICs.

These days even Starbucks and Microsoft publish salary ranges while many in the development sector routinely don’t. We’re being outpaced by multinational corporations. It’s frankly a little embarrassing!

This also isn’t a nice-to-have anymore. The EU Pay Transparency Directive becomes law in June 2026; several US states already require pay transparency and the UK may not be far behind. If your organisation is still resisting this shift, you’re not just behind best practice – you’re on the wrong side of where employment law and donor expectations are heading.

We can lead this change – or we can be dragged into it. I know where I’d rather be.

(Of course, some organisations are doing this well – please do shout them out in the comments. Credit where it’s due.)

How does salary and budget opacity cause harm and feed inequity?

Keeping salaries and budgets hidden creates information asymmetry – some people know what roles typically pay, or what the going rates are for projects; some don’t. This consistently benefits those with strong networks and insider knowledge and consistently disadvantages those outside those circles.  When organisations choose not to disclose salary bands or budget ranges, they’re not staying neutral – they’re tilting the playing field in favour of those who already hold power, leading to a series of overlapping harms:

• Discrimination against women and minority groups.
  There’s strong evidence that pay opacity particularly harms women and minority groups. Studies show that “Women and minorities ask for – and are offered – lower salaries than white men – often because of fears about how they’ll be perceived” (BBC Worklife). Why? Because if they negotiate hard they risk being seen as “not nice” or “not collaborative”, while their male counterparts get points for confidence. This internalised fear plays out in job applications, pay discussions, and consultancy bids alike.

  When salary bands are hidden, that socialisation becomes a structural disadvantage. When they’re published, it levels the playing field and the information itself does some of the negotiating work:

  “Pay transparency reduces the gender pay gap between men and women by approximately 20–40%” (National Bureau of Economic Research)

• Exclusion of LMIC consultants and applicants – opacity privileges ‘insiders’.
  While salary transparency is gaining traction in hiring conversations, and procurement transparency in general is on the agenda (for example, Open Government Partnership’s The Costs of Secrecy) there’s very little discussion of budget / rate transparency for consultants in RFPs, or TORs. Arguably, transparency is even more important in these cases as consultants often have fewer legal protections, and there’s been a surge of new entrants to consulting following the recent wave of global job losses in aid/development.

  Imagine this: a Northern applicant with ten years in the sector, plugged into the right networks, knows going rates and anchors their proposal at £600 a day. Their Southern competitor, without the same informal knowledge, bids £200 for the same work – and wins the job on cost. The hiring organisation thinks they’ve got a bargain. What they’ve actually done is locked in a £400/day inequity based purely on who had access to what information.

  Do we really want to be celebrating “getting a good deal” on a project if the deal reinforces damaging North–South inequalities we’re actively trying to dismantle?

• Risking cost being privileged over quality.
  When RFPs don’t include a budget range, they “encourage a race to the bottom” (Feminuity).

  A typical scenario: a Southern consultant, needing work and trying to be competitive, bids £20k for a piece of work (they have no idea of the budget, suspect it’s really a £50k+ job, but they gamble that a lower bid gives them a shot). The Northern competitor, with stronger networks, knew that the real budget range was likely £50-100k and submitted something more suitable.

  Perhaps the Southern consultant loses, as they’ve scoped too small a project.  Worse still, perhaps they win and they’re stuck trying to deliver a much larger piece of work than they quoted for – and either burn themselves out trying to make it work, or under-deliver. 

  Making vendors fly blind and guess budgets/scope leaves them unable to assess whether the work is feasible, risking undercooked proposals, inadequate delivery, and a procurement culture where cheaper routinely beats better.

  There are better ways. Feminuity’s advice is: “Always provide an initial budget range (and stick to it). Don’t encourage a bidding war for the cheapest proposal. Don’t make it about supply and demand in a field that values community work.”

  Kera Collective also highlight the positive ripple effects of such budget transparency, which:

  • “helps consultants assess whether there’s alignment,
  • saves time and energy on both sides,
  • allows for realistic, high-quality proposals tailored to what’s actually affordable,
  • and builds trust from the outset.”

  It’s not just fairer – it’s smarter procurement. Everyone wins.

• Creates inefficiencies and time-wasting in hiring processes.
  Sorting through CVs or proposals was time-consuming at the best of times, and with the rise of AI, the volume has just exploded. More applications, less quality. More noise, less clarity.

  In response, many recruiters and procurement teams have started using AI tools to filter responses. But this has opened up a whole new can of worms – fairness concerns, inconsistent results, and still, a lot of wasted time.

  One simple, human-centred fix? Just publish the salary or budget range and allow people to self-select – those for whom the pay or budget isn’t viable won’t apply. That alone slashes the number of irrelevant or unrealistic applications and saves everyone – recruiters and applicants alike – a heap of wasted effort.

  As Reed.co.uk put it: “Stating the salary will help to attract talent from the right salary bracket, saving you time and money in the long run by filtering out unsuitable or non-serious candidates.”

  And it’s not just about quality – it’s about speed. With typical time to hire at over 40 days, Recruitics note that salary transparency “helps streamline the whole process and makes it faster to find good-fit candidates”.

  So yes, transparency is an equity issue – but it’s also just good operations.

• It may harm your brand and scare off high-quality applicants.
  Let’s be blunt: opacity is organisational self-harm. When you don’t disclose salary or budget ranges, you’re not just frustrating applicants – you’re actively filtering out confident, high-quality candidates. The ones who know their worth. The ones who aren’t going to gamble their time and energy writing proposals or sitting through multiple interviews without knowing if your budget is £10k or £200k.

  That’s not strategic. That’s self-sabotage, and the evidence backs it up:

  4 in 5 jobseekers are less likely to apply if the salary isn’t listed (ResumeLab)
  
  44% skip those ads entirely . . . many Gen Z candidates refusing to apply at all without salary info (Gartner, Adobe)
  
  Job ads that disclose salary receive about 60% more applications (Ongig)
  
  LinkedIn jobs research showed salary is the #1 factor making someone likely to apply

  It’s not just the numbers, it also about trust. Organisations that are open about pay are seen as more transparent, and more aligned with the equity-based values they claim to stand for (Recruitics).

  Transparency doesn’t damage your brand or scare off quality candidates – secrecy may well do!

These aren’t just one-off problems; they are systemic and structural and reinforce issues over time: Insiders get hired → they build more experience → they learn more about market rates → their advantage grows. The result? The insiders cycle through ever better roles, while those outside remain shut out of the networks without the information they need to compete fairly.

“But we can’t post the salary / budget . . . “

I thought it might be helpful to consider some of the justifications given for not including budgets or salaries and see if they hold up to scrutiny.

Justification #1: “We don’t want to frighten off people who think the money is too high or low.”
It may sound logical – but the data doesn’t back it up. Numerous studies show that publishing ranges actually increases relevant, quality applications and increases applications from women and minority groups (MokaHR, Screening Women Out?, Labor Market Participants’ Reactions to Salary Range Disclosures in Job Postings).

It’s perhaps even more important when we’re talking about consultancy or project budgets. If you’ve got £50k to spend, do you really want someone guessing – and submitting – a £10k or £100k proposal – only to be ruled out, even though they might have been the perfect fit if only they’d had the right info?

Justification #2: “We need flexibility.”
That’s literally what ranges are for.

You don’t need to commit to a specific number in advance. Saying “£50–70k/year” or “budget range £75–100k” leaves plenty of room to manoeuvre, while giving all applicants the information they need to engage meaningfully.

Sure, it means doing a bit of research first to make sure you’re pitching the range appropriately. But as Astute People put it: “Some employers worry that listing pay reduces flexibility. In practice, a clear salary range preserves flexibility while giving candidates a useful signal… It’s critical for hiring professionals to conduct market research to set competitive salary ranges for each role.”

Justification #3: “Our current staff might get upset if they saw the salary in an advert”
If this is a real concern, it probably points to a bigger internal equity problem – one that deserves attention.  Transparency isn’t the cause of tension – it’s just the thing that surfaces it. And while yes, that can be uncomfortable, it’s also an opportunity to address structural issues that might otherwise stay hidden. It may also be a moment to get support around how you communicate internally about pay.

Again, Astute People back this up: “Transparent bands, regular review cycles, and a clear pay philosophy help employees understand how pay is set, which supports fairness and improves morale over time.”

Justification #4: “It varies by geography and we don’t want to advertise the fact.”
Ok so this one’s messier… Salary bands for global roles can be complex. Many organisations are still figuring out a fair way of managing international and localised pay scales, and there’s no one-size-fits-all solution.  But complexity isn’t an excuse for opacity.

Being honest about your current messy-but-evolving approach is far more equitable – and practical – than hiding it. After all, these issues are going to come up anyway after you’ve hired someone. Why not save yourself the awkwardness (and possible distrust) and get ahead of it?

Justification #5 (the clincher): “Our HR or procurement policies won’t let me include it…”
I heard this a lot when I’ve been in a large organisation and post jobs or commissioning contracts – it took the decision entirely out of my hands.

So yes – maybe you can’t get around it this time. But… what if you passed this article on to HR or Procurement? You never know – it might help start a conversation or even prompt a policy shift.

And if not, then ask: what can you do?

• For job – can you offer “salary/budget range available on request”? Can you link to your org’s pay bands?
• For RFPs – can you at least indicate an expected number of days or a rate cap? Suggest people apply with different budget options for different scope sizes?

Even a little more context helps applicants judge whether it’s worth their time – and helps you get better proposals in return.

Have you come across or used any others – legitimate or otherwise? Would love to hear them in the comments!

OK – you’ve convinced me. So, what exactly should I be doing?

Here’s some good practices you can start doing immediately.

For job postings:

If you’re hiring for a salaried role, include:

• A genuine salary band (and total package / benefits if relevant in your location)
  But first, benchmark the role using current market data, and review your bands regularly to make sure they stay relevant.
• Clarity on working hours – Is it £50,000 for a full-time 40-hour week? For 35 hours? For four days a week? These things matter, and they change how candidates assess your offer.
• Regional variations – If your rates vary by location, say so. And ideally, publish the bands for each region. Global roles can get messy – honesty is better than ambiguity.
• Avoid meaningless fluff – Words like “competitive” or “commensurate with experience” tell people absolutely nothing. Be specific, or don’t be surprised when people self-select out.

For RFPs, TORs, and consultancy contracts:

If you want good proposals – and if you care about fairness – people need enough information to scope the work intelligently. You don’t need to publish everything, but any two (or more) of the following will usually give enough clarity:

• Total budget – If you can’t give an exact figure or range, then at the very least offer a budget cap. It’s not ideal, but it still helps people self-select and reduces information asymmetry.
• Acceptable day rates or rate caps – e.g. “We are not permitted to pay over £500 per day. Please factor this into your proposal.” This is a simple, powerful equity move. It stops negotiation-based inequities before they start.
• Expected LOE (level of effort) – A range of expected days for the work. This isn’t politics – it’s just basic scope clarity. If the work is likely to take 50–70 days, say so.

What I plan to do – and what I’m encouraging others to join me in

I’d love for you to join me. Here’s how you can:

• If you’re hiring or posting an RFP – include salary or budget ranges as outlined above. If you genuinely aren’t allowed to, ask yourself: what can you do to make things even slightly more transparent?
• If you’re in leadership, HR, or procurement – can you make this a formal organisational policy? Don’t leave it up to individual hiring managers, and don’t assume everyone understands the wider equity context.
• If you spot a job or consultancy ad from your own organisation without salary, rate, cap, or at least expected days – consider challenging it internally. You don’t have to start a revolution – a quiet nudge, backed by a few arguments from this piece, might go a long way.
• If you see a job or consultancy ad on LinkedIn or elsewhere without this information – call it out. Kindly, constructively – and feel free to link here if it helps.

This shouldn’t fall on just one or two of us. Doing it alone feels risky. It can look personal. But if we all speak up, it starts to become the norm – and the risk disappears. Quiet, persistent inequity can’t be tackled with silence. But collective, consistent action? That changes things.

If you support this message, please share it. If you disagree, I’d genuinely love to hear why – ideally publicly, so we can have the open conversation this sector so badly needs.

#PayTransparency
#PostThePayRange