Pay gaps start with silence
By Laura Chambers
In 2007, Tony Blair stepped down, the iPhone launched, and Nyree Ambarchian and I discovered we were being paid differently for the same job.
We had identical responsibilities and delivered the same outcomes, yet our salaries weren’t equal. It wasn’t malicious. It was opaque. Once you see the inequality, you can’t unsee it.
That moment sparked a commitment to do things differently.
Years later, when we co-founded Jack & Grace, we baked transparency into our values from the outset. This year, we launched #SayThePay, a campaign urging UK employers to list salaries in job ads and commit to openness around pay.
Salary transparency is a systemic issue
Employers often treat leaving salaries off job ads as a minor administrative decision or a way to retain flexibility. But its consequences are far-reaching and almost always fall hardest on the people already most marginalised.
When pay is hidden, people doing the same job routinely earn wildly different salaries. That difference isn’t always about skill, experience or performance; it often comes down to confidence in negotiation or legacy pay from a previous job.
Secrecy bakes inequality into the system. And once it’s in, it’s hard to level.
The data is stark:
47% of ethnically diverse professionals believe they’re underpaid compared to white colleagues (People Like Us)
On average, women in the UK earn £631 less than men every month (Fawcett Society)
Two in five people have discovered a pay gap with a colleague in a similar role. That figure jumps to nearly 60% among younger millennials (Jack & Grace research)
Hidden salaries hurt recruitment
The public relations industry has a talent pipeline issue. Research by PR Week shows that three in five practitioners won’t apply for jobs without a salary listed. Our own data echoes that: 64% of job seekers won’t even bother applying if there’s no pay info.
If you’re not upfront about salary, you’re closing the door to candidates who need to plan around the cost of living, childcare and other commitments. You’re saying: this opportunity isn’t for you.
Conversely, transparency:
Builds trust
Improves retention
Boosts productivity
Reduces legal and reputational risk
Other countries are ahead
In Sweden, where salary transparency is embedded into workplace culture, the gender pay gap for people doing the same job is less than ten per cent.
The UK? Still playing catch-up. But the appetite for change is growing:
57% of UK workers say they’d be willing to share their salary to tackle inequality
Among 16 to 34-year-olds, it’s 62%
This is a generational shift in what fairness looks like.
It’s time to lead
Listing a salary on a job ad is one of the simplest, clearest things an employer can do to show they value equity.
More than 110,000 people have watched our Say The Pay campaign film, which features a dodgy ice cream seller who won’t disclose prices. It’s silly, but it lands the point.
Watch it. Share it. And if you’re hiring, please include the salary in your next ad.
