With the June 2026 deadline for implementing the EU’s Pay Transparency Directive just weeks away, many large member states are at risk of missing compliance.
Pay remains the main driver of job search decisions across Europe, yet despite this, salary information is still frequently absent from job postings, despite a years-long, EU-driven policy push to increase salary transparency, according to a recent report published by job-search platform Indeed.
Indeed’s research found that several major European markets are likely to miss targets set out by the upcoming EU Pay Transparency Directive deadline, which states that by June 2026, employers must have created an environment in which the discussion of pay is not shrouded in secrecy or otherwise restricted.
When it comes to the rate of inclusion of salary information on jobs postings, several large European economies, such as Germany (12pc) and Spain (17pc), were found to be lagging significantly, in comparison to the UK (56pc), the Netherlands (48pc) and France (43pc).
Italy is the only country so far to have noted a sustained rise in recent months, jumping from 22pc to 36pc. In contrast, the UK, though not directly impacted by the directive, experienced a decline, as the share of postings mentioning salary dropped from almost two-thirds to just over one-half.
