One thousand and nine job adverts currently promote access to water as an employee benefit. Coffee appears as a perk in 553 more. Meanwhile, 30% of employers refuse to disclose any salary information whatsoever.
An analysis of 9,646 job listings on reed.co.uk reveals the extent to which UK recruitment has become a theatre of misdirection—basic legal entitlements repackaged as generous perks, salary information withheld, and vast pay gaps hidden behind conveniently vague ranges.
The timing matters. With government ministers considering stronger pay transparency enforcement and the #SayThePay campaign gaining momentum, the research from employee experience platform Reward Gateway exposes a recruitment landscape built on omission and exaggeration.
Legal sector positions emerged with the second widest advertised salary bands across any industry, averaging £30,103 between the lowest and highest figures. Only estate agents fared worse, with an average spread of £43,274—a gap wide enough to accommodate two or three separate careers.
That £30,000 variance in law roles wasn’t an outlier. Across all industries and job levels, the average distance between the bottom and top of advertised salary bands stretched to £9,887. Wide enough to mask significant pay inequality. Wide enough that two people doing identical work could earn vastly different amounts for reasons having nothing to do with performance.
The figures help explain why. Newly qualified solicitors at City firms can expect around £140,000. Their counterparts in regional or public sector traineeships? Between £18,200 and £30,000. The same job title, wildly different realities.
Yet law firms appeared particularly fond of dressing up statutory minimums as special treatment. The sector ranked joint top for highlighting statutory sick pay and statutory maternity leave—legal requirements, not optional extras—as employee perks.
They weren’t alone. Nearly one in five job adverts across all sectors promoted at least one basic legal entitlement as a benefit. Three hundred and thirty-six companies listed 28 days of annual leave as a perk, despite this being the legal minimum. Charity organisations did this most frequently, featuring in 63 such instances. Social care followed with 57, sales with 55.
Four hundred and fifty-seven companies highlighted training as a benefit. Training required to actually perform the job.
The industries most likely to withhold salary information entirely were strategy and consultancy firms (205 adverts with no pay details), estate agents (154), and manufacturing (143). The reasons varied—commission structures in property, negotiation-based compensation in consulting, complex shift and skills premiums in manufacturing—but the outcome remained consistent. Candidates left guessing.
Retail showed the most transparency, with 256 adverts including clear salary information. Catering and social care each had 247, charities 242.
Of the jobs that did disclose pay, 17% listed a set salary. Fifty-three percent offered ranges instead. That flexibility comes at a cost. Research cited in the study found 22% of people would avoid applying for a position if only a pay range was advertised, and 64% of jobseekers won’t apply at all unless salary information appears.
The widest salary bands appeared in estate agency, where commission-driven earnings can range from £15,000 to over £90,000 for similar roles. Insurance followed law in third place, with an average band of £20,921—a reflection of the gulf between entry-level claims handlers earning £20,000 to £30,000 and technical specialists on six-figure salaries.
At the other end, customer service roles showed the tightest bands at £1,660, followed by apprenticeships (£1,783) and retail (£2,461).
As for the perks themselves? Snacks appeared in 46 adverts. Fruit in 32. Casual dress in 35. Twelve companies promised pizza. Twenty-three mentioned the Christmas party. The infamous ping-pong table, emblem of a previous era’s startup culture, made a solitary appearance.
The disconnect between what employers highlight and what employees value has consequences. Recent reports revealed ghost jobs—adverts for positions that don’t actually exist—may account for 34% of UK listings. Separate investigations found social care workers given misleading hourly rates that masked pay falling below minimum wage.
These practices triggered the #SayThePay campaign earlier this year, demanding basic transparency in job adverts. The government is now weighing stronger enforcement on pay transparency and equal pay.
Chris Britton, People Experience Director at Reward Gateway, noted the scale of the problem. “It’s surprising that nearly one in five job ads still promote basic legal entitlements as perks and that salary transparency remains limited, with 30% of adverts providing no pay information,” he said.
“However, improving transparency is vital to helping both employers and employees. It enables candidates to make informed career decisions, while helping businesses attract and retain top talent. Businesses should prioritise delivering meaningful benefits that support financial, physical, and emotional well-being, rather than repackaging minimal offerings to make roles appear more attractive.”
The analysis, conducted using Screaming Frog SEO Spider, scraped the first ten pages of listings across 37 job categories on reed.co.uk, filtering for full-time permanent positions. Researchers then searched for mentions of common “trope” perks unlikely to meaningfully impact employee wellbeing—water, one-hour lunch breaks, statutory holiday minimums.
What emerges is a portrait of a job market where the rules of engagement have broken down. Employers expect candidates to invest significant time and effort in applications whilst withholding the most basic information needed to make informed decisions. Legal minimums get rebranded as generous benefits. Salary ranges stretch wide enough to hide systematic inequalities.
For the 64% of jobseekers who won’t apply without seeing a salary, that leaves an increasingly narrow field. For everyone else, it means navigating a landscape where water counts as a perk and transparency remains optional.
