Published pay remains rare across global job openings

Spotlight, October 5, 2026

Only 5.3% of global vacancies state salary upfront, with disclosure heavily concentrated in select Western markets and specialised white-collar roles.

Pay transparency is widely discussed by corporate boards and compensation committees, yet transparent postings remain an exception on corporate career sites. Across 2.37 million open jobs monitored on 5 October 2026 by the Arihaan crawl, only 5.3% include published salary information. Remote roles account for 6.9% of tracked vacancies, and hybrid positions represent 6.0%, showing that workplace flexibility is documented far more often than base compensation.

Official benchmarks from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics show a labour market gradually cooling, with BLS JOLTS reporting 7.08 million open jobs in August 2026 and an unemployment rate of 4.2% in September 2026 via the BLS Current Population Survey. In this hiring environment, transparent salary figures offer valuable visibility into corporate willingness to pay, though disclosure practices remain heavily divided by jurisdiction and job discipline.

National disclosure rates reflect sharp regulatory and cultural divides

Disclosure rates vary sharply across national labour markets, according to the Arihaan crawl. The United States leads major economies with 6.6% of open jobs displaying pay ranges across 1.52 million tracked postings. The United Kingdom and France follow, each publishing pay on 5.1% of postings across 85,447 and 69,231 open roles respectively. Canada records a 4.3% share across 76,694 openings, while Spain posts 3.9% across 19,119 vacancies.

Outside these jurisdictions, upfront pay disclosure is almost absent. In Germany, only 0.7% of 71,386 open jobs include pay data. Australia registers 0.8% across 27,697 roles, while major Asian centres show minimal figures: Singapore records 0.7%, Malaysia posts 0.5%, and India and China both record 0.3%. For multinational employers, this fragmented landscape complicates global compensation benchmarking, leaving regional hiring teams operating under conflicting expectations regarding salary disclosure.

Technical and executive professions command the highest advertised rates

Where compensation is disclosed, posted figures reveal a steep premium for technical expertise. According to the Arihaan crawl, the median annual pay across all US open jobs with published pay is $81,900. Software Engineering tops the list with a median annual salary of $200,000 across 5,138 openings, spanning from a 25th percentile of $160,000 to a 75th percentile of $237,500. Data and AI roles follow closely with a median of $188,600, while Product and Design positions post a median of $185,000.

Executive and General Management postings record a median of $162,500 across 1,296 roles, while Engineering (Non-Software) posts $137,500 across 4,916 jobs. At the opposite end of the distribution, service and support disciplines cluster well below the national median. Customer Success and Support vacancies post a median of $57,200, Manufacturing and Skilled Trades record $56,160, and Administrative roles display $52,500. Retail and Hospitality sits at the base of the distribution with a median of $37,440 across 8,747 open jobs.

Transparency rates remain stable while select white-collar pay shifts upward

Disclosure rates across occupational functions show moderate variation, ranging from 7.2% in Education and Training, Product and Design, Marketing and Communications, and People and HR down to 3.3% in Retail and Hospitality. Even in technical categories, publication remains restrained: Software Engineering registers pay on 6.6% of roles, Data and AI on 5.9%, and Cybersecurity on 4.7%.

Despite low disclosure frequency, like-for-like tracking of identical employers over the week to 5 October 2026 highlights upward adjustments in select high-skill brackets. The Arihaan crawl indicates that median advertised annual pay for Cybersecurity roles rose 3.0% to $170,000, up from $165,000 across 556 comparable openings. Geographic shifts also emerged, with like-for-like advertised pay in Spain rising 7.1% to $42,100 across 630 positions. For talent executives and workforce planners, these movements show that while overall transparency adoption is slow, posted pay figures provide a real-time signal of competitive pressures in key professional specialisms.

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