Putting the salary in a job advert used to be optional. Candidates increasingly treat it as a basic courtesy. In research by Reed reported in 2022, 78% of UK jobseekers said they were less likely to apply for a vacancy that didn’t show a salary. The figure was higher still among women, disabled people and LGBTQ+ jobseekers.
That matters for neurodiversity. Many neurodivergent people find ambiguity hard to work with, and an advert that says “competitive salary” leaves them guessing about the most basic fact of the job. Leave the number out and you lose capable applicants before they ever reach your process. Here is what you gain by putting it in.
1. You attract the right candidates
A salary range tells people straight away whether the role fits their circumstances. Applicants self-select, so you spend less time on candidates whose expectations were never going to match the offer, and the people who do apply already know what they are signing up for.
Salary is only one part of a clear advert. Our guide to writing accessible job descriptions covers the rest.
2. You build trust before the first conversation
Advertising pay openly signals that you are straightforward to deal with. Negotiating salary is stressful for a lot of people, and for many neurodivergent candidates the unwritten rules of negotiation are a real barrier. When the range is on the advert, that guesswork disappears and the process becomes fairer and more predictable.
3. You support equal pay
When pay is decided behind closed doors, people who negotiate confidently tend to do better, regardless of their skills. Publishing ranges reduces that effect and helps close gender, ethnicity and disability pay gaps. With disability pay gap reporting on the government’s agenda, it is worth getting ahead of it. We explain what disability pay gap reporting could mean for employers in a separate post.
4. You strengthen your employer brand
Candidates want to work for organisations whose values match their own. Being open about pay is a visible, low-cost way to show you mean what you say about fairness. It also makes your adverts stand out against competitors who still hide behind “competitive”. If neurodivergent applicants are not reaching you, your adverts and careers site are often the first place to look; we cover this in why neurodivergent job seekers avoid some careers pages.
5. You make pay fairer inside the organisation
Transparency doesn’t stop at recruitment. When staff understand how pay is structured, they are more likely to trust that they are being treated fairly. That trust supports retention and engagement, and it makes difficult conversations about pay easier for managers.
Make transparency your default
Publishing salary ranges is one of the simplest changes you can make to your hiring, and it costs nothing. It widens your talent pool, removes a barrier that disproportionately affects disabled and neurodivergent candidates, and shows applicants you can be trusted. Treat it as standard practice rather than a compliance exercise.
How Enna can help you hire inclusively
Clear pay is a good start, but most hiring processes contain other barriers that are easy to miss from the inside. Enna’s neuroinclusion audits review your adverts, application process and interviews and show you what to change. If you want a quick sense of where you stand first, try our neuroinclusion maturity assessment.
When your process is ready, you can reach neurodivergent talent through Enna by advertising roles on our jobs board. To talk any of this through, book a call with our team.
