What Should Employers Pay? Free Fair Pay Checker
What should employers pay for a new role? It is one of the first questions every hiring manager asks, and getting it wrong costs time and good candidates. Our free fair pay checker answers it in seconds. Enter the job title, where the job is based and the pay you plan to offer, and we compare it with similar live job adverts near you.
Check Your Pay Against Live Job Adverts
The checker uses the Bernoullis job feed, which collects more than 150,000 public UK job adverts every night. That makes it a live salary benchmark based on what other employers are offering right now, not last year’s survey.
What should employers pay? How to work it out in 4 steps
Want to know how often adverts in your area show pay at all? See our pay transparency league table, ranked by region, county, job type and employer.
Before you use any salary benchmark, be clear about the job itself. A “site manager” on a small housing site and one on a hospital build are very different roles, and the pay should reflect that.
- Write down the real job title and level. Use the title candidates search for, such as “electrician” or “senior quantity surveyor”, not an internal grade.
- Check local pay, not national pay. What should employers pay in Kent is not the same as in Manchester. Use the fair pay checker with your postcode and a 10, 25 or 50 mile radius.
- Decide where you want to sit. Paying around the median gets you a normal flow of applicants. Paying in the upper part of the range helps when skills are scarce or you need someone quickly.
- Add the full package. Hours, shift patterns, overtime, pension, holiday, training and flexible working all change how attractive an offer is.
Average advertised pay by region
As a starting point, here is the median advertised yearly pay in each UK nation and region, from 77,877 adverts with pay in our job feed on 2 November 2026. The UK median was £37,500.
| Region | Median advertised pay | Adverts with pay |
|---|---|---|
| London | £42,500 | 14,548 |
| South East | £38,000 | 12,662 |
| North West | £37,500 | 8,954 |
| South West | £37,500 | 8,294 |
| West Midlands | £37,000 | 7,606 |
| Wales | £36,500 | 2,003 |
| East of England | £36,000 | 7,486 |
| Scotland | £36,000 | 2,343 |
| Yorkshire and the Humber | £35,200 | 6,191 |
| East Midlands | £35,000 | 5,021 |
| Northern Ireland | £34,500 | 408 |
| North East | £34,100 | 2,361 |
For a full breakdown by job type, read our regional guides, starting with average pay in London, average pay in the South East and average pay in the North West.
What should employers pay for different types of job?
Pay varies far more by job type than by region. These are median advertised yearly salaries in the South East, our home region, for some of the sectors we recruit for:
| Job type (South East) | Median advertised pay |
|---|---|
| Construction and civil engineering | £54,000 |
| Electrical and electronics engineering | £47,500 |
| IT, software and data | £44,800 |
| Mechanical and design engineering | £42,500 |
| Healthcare and care | £44,000 |
| Skilled trades and technicians | £38,500 |
| Manufacturing and production | £35,000 |
| Logistics, warehouse and driving | £31,000 |
| Admin and office | £29,800 |
| Customer service | £27,300 |
Use the fair pay checker for the exact role and location, as the figures above are wide averages. Our sector pages for construction, healthcare, manufacturing, energy, IT, logistics and engineering also show live local pay for each county.
The legal minimum comes first
Whatever your salary benchmark says, you must pay at least the National Minimum Wage or National Living Wage for the worker’s age. Check the current rates on GOV.UK, as they usually change each April. Remember to check hourly pay after any unpaid breaks, uniform costs or deductions.
For long-term pay trends across the whole workforce, the Office for National Statistics publishes the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings. It shows what people already in work earn, while our checker shows what employers are advertising now.
Common mistakes when setting pay
- Copying the last person’s salary. The market may have moved since they were hired. A quick salary benchmark avoids an offer that is out of date.
- Hiding the pay in the advert. Around 44% of adverts in our feed show no pay. Adverts that show pay stand out to candidates comparing offers.
- Ignoring travel. If your site is hard to reach, candidates will expect more to cover the commute.
- Forgetting counter-offers. Strong candidates often get a counter-offer from their current employer. Leave room in your budget.
Benefits that change what you need to pay
Salary is the first thing candidates compare, but it is rarely the only thing. A slightly lower salary can still win if the rest of the offer is strong.
- Hours and shifts. A four-day week, no weekend work or a fixed day shift can be worth thousands of pounds to the right candidate.
- Overtime and allowances. Be clear about overtime rates, call-out pay, travel time and tool or vehicle allowances.
- Pension and holiday. An employer pension above the legal minimum, or extra days of leave, adds real value.
- Training and progression. Paid courses, tickets and a clear route to the next role matter a lot to younger candidates.
- Hybrid or flexible working. Where the job allows it, flexibility widens the area you can recruit from.
When you compare your package with the market, list these alongside the salary so candidates can see the full value of the offer.
How the fair pay checker works
The checker finds adverts from the last 60 days with a similar job title within your chosen distance. It takes the advertised pay, using the midpoint where a range is given, and turns hourly and daily rates into a yearly figure (37.5 hours a week for 52 weeks, or 225 working days). It then shows the median pay, the range most adverts fall into, and where your offer sits.
If there are not enough similar adverts nearby, it widens the search to 50 miles or drops words like “senior” from the job title, and tells you what it matched on. Results are a guide to the current market, not advice.
Questions about what employers should pay
What should employers pay to attract good candidates?
For most roles, an offer at or above the local median for that job title will attract a healthy number of applicants. For scarce skills, aim for the upper part of the local range shown by the fair pay checker.
Is the fair pay checker free?
Yes. The fair pay checker is free, needs no sign-up and you can run up to 40 checks a day.
Where does the salary data come from?
From public UK job adverts collected every night by the Bernoullis job feed, including employer careers sites, the NHS, councils, schools and job boards.
Can you help us decide what we should pay?
Yes. We recruit across engineering, construction, healthcare, manufacturing, energy, IT and logistics, and we can benchmark a role against the candidates we see every week. Talk to Bernoullis and we will reply within 24 hours. You can also try our other free recruitment tools.
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