How to Use Competitive Pay to Attract Top Talent in Any Market

Key points: 

• Competitive pay is market-aligned total compensation for a specific role, level, and location.
• Your candidates already know what you’re paying through research, and hiding those numbers only creates fiction from the start. 
• Salary negotiations due to unannounced ranges can perpetuate the gender pay gap. 
• The best strategy for finding salary ranges is to use a salary benchmarking tool that gives you a live view of the market. 

When candidates see "competitive salary" in your job ads, they're not thinking "great opportunity." They're thinking "red flag." Online research conducted by Atomik Research for Reed.co.uk found that 78% of jobseekers are put off applying for roles that don't mention a salary upfront.

“You wouldn’t shop in a supermarket that doesn’t list its prices, so why should we expect people to sift through job ads that don’t advertise salary?” 

– Simon Wingate, managing director of Reed.

We completely agree. Plus, we’re dealing with real people here, who deserve to know exactly what they’ll be paid for the work they do. No one wants to go through three rounds of interviews, only to feel like they’ve been low-balled when they’re offered the job. Thankfully, there’s a way to fix that. 

This guide shows you how to transform your compensation approach from a candidate turn-off into your sharpest recruitment advantage. You'll learn why transparent pay ranges attract better applicants, how to benchmark a role and define a confident salary range this week, and exactly what to say about money at every stage of hiring. Let’s go. 

What competitive pay actually means today

Competitive pay is market-aligned total compensation for a specific role, level, and location. It’s not the baseless buzzword that some companies include on their job posts - it’s an actual salary range that’s backed up by actual data. 

The foundation is base salary, but the full package includes bonuses, equity, pension contributions, and benefits like flexible working. A Marketing Manager in London earning £65,000 base with 10% annual bonus and strong health coverage? That's competitive if the market median sits at £60,000-£70,000 for similar roles.

However, offering competitive pay isn’t enough to attract talent: it still needs to be clearly and transparently communicated, especially in job ads. Research conducted among more than 5,800 students and recent graduates aged 18 to 30 found that 67% are more likely to apply if a job offer mentions salary. 

This isn't just a youth phenomenon – a survey by Robert Half shows that half of French employees wouldn't apply for roles without salary information. Companies are catching on: 60% now indicate salary in their job offers in 2024, up from just 30% in 2022.

Here's why getting this right transforms your recruitment:

• Attracts top talent: quality candidates know their worth and skip ads without clear ranges.
• Reduces turnover: people stay when they feel fairly paid compared to the market.
• Cuts recruitment costs: fewer hiring cycles mean less time and money spent refilling the same roles.
• Boosts morale and productivity: fair pay creates engaged teams who focus on work, not job boards.
• Strengthens employer brand: transparency signals you're a trustworthy organisation that values people.

‼️Competitive pay is a great way to get new talent through the door, but you’ll need to be careful that you’re not creating salary compression issues or unfair pay gaps. That’s why we recommend implementing competitive pay retention strategies, too. 

The psychology of pay transparency in recruitment 

You’ve got an idea of some of the benefits that competitive pay recruitment can bring, but let’s look at it in a bit more detail. After all, companies can be stubborn in their practices. We want to arm you with all of the ammunition you need to start making changes. 

Candidates already know what you're paying

If your company is still one of the outliers that aren’t providing actual salary ranges, please recognise that you’re not being as clever as you think. We’re in the information age (key focus on information), where you can find the data you want as long as you know where to look.  

Fact is, it’s not even difficult to find salary data. Prospective employees are checking Glassdoor, asking friends in similar roles, and increasingly, turning to AI tools like ChatGPT for instant salary estimates. Our own internal research shows that for many common positions, these AI-generated estimates land surprisingly close to actual market rates.

So, when you’re making a job ad, assume viewers will already know what you’re paying. Hiding your number only creates friction from the start.

Transparency builds instant trust

When you post a salary range, you send three powerful signals:

• You've done your homework: a published range shows you have a structured, data-backed compensation process – not arbitrary decisions made during negotiation.
• You respect candidates' time: nobody wants three hours of interviews only to discover the role pays €20,000 below their minimum. Posting ranges filters out misaligned expectations early.
• You attract the right people: candidates who value fairness gravitate toward transparent ads. You're filtering in cultural matches, leading to higher offer acceptance rates.

Now for the costs… 

The cost of silence

Simon and Garfunkel may have written about The Sound of Silence, but maybe they should’ve been more focused on the cost. 

That’s because, without a published range, three things happen:

• You attract negotiators, not fits: candidates enter focused on what they can get out of your company rather than the role itself.
• You lose talent to competitors: when two similar roles appear side-by-side, candidates apply to the one with a visible range first.
• You perpetuate pay gaps: on average, the pay gap for all employees stood at 13.1% in the UK, and women's gross hourly earnings are 12% lower than men's across the EU. Negotiation outcomes often reflect confidence and cultural norms, not merit, and secrecy amplifies this.

While the UK already has gender pay gap reporting rules, the EU Pay Transparency Directive is setting the new standard. For EU countries, pay transparency in recruitment is becoming a legal requirement, not just something you feel like doing. 

That doesn’t mean companies in the UK shouldn’t be posting accurate salary ranges just because there are no laws saying they have to. At the end of the day, job seekers deserve to know what they’re getting into and what they’re being paid. 

“Modern recruitment culture requires businesses to be open and transparent, especially as information on salary ranges becomes easier to find online. Businesses still following archaic hiring practices are hurting their chances of attracting top talent.”

– Virgile Raingeard, Figures CEO and ex-HR

💡Plus, it’s not just job seekers who see increased benefits. Recruiters also report that posting ranges yield fewer applications, which might sound like a bad thing at first. But that’s mostly because applicants will self-fliter first, leading to higher-quality applicants who’re a more natural fit. That means quicker hiring times, too. 

Rather than spending an entire month doing interviews, talking to every Tom, Dick, and Harry, you can actually do something useful. Like choosing pay equity software that can actually increase pay transparency at your company… 

Quick benchmarking: from job spec to salary range in no time

You don't need a month-long analysis. You need a defensible number you can post this week. Here's how.

Step 1: Define the role, not just the title

"Marketing Manager" means nothing without context. Is this a junior manager coordinating campaigns, or a senior leader building strategy and managing a team of five? That’s why you need proper job architecture. 

Start here:

• What's the level or grade of this role internally? (Entry, mid, senior, lead?)
• What are the core skills and responsibilities that truly drive value? (Budget ownership? Team leadership? Technical expertise?)

The clearer you are about what the role actually does, the more accurate your benchmark will be.

Step 2: Gather your market data points

Wrestling with outdated annual surveys, scraping biased self-reported data from job boards, or asking a recruiter friend over coffee. If it’s not obvious already, we’re not fans of these methods. That’s because the data just isn’t accurate (even if that coffee is good).  

There is a better way. Modern salary benchmarking tools pull anonymised data directly from hundreds of companies' HR systems, giving you a live view of the market. These platforms aggregate real compensation data and update it monthly.

If there’s one lesson to pull from this step, it’s that you don’t need to make your life more difficult if automation is easier and more accurate.

Step 3: Filter for a true comparison

Context changes everything. A "Marketing Manager" salary in a 200-person fast-growing company in Manchester is completely different from one at a 5,000-person enterprise in Paris. 

Obviously, the bigger the company, the larger the wages, right? Correct, but it goes deeper than that; you also need to account for location, industry, and job level, too.

Step 4: Define your range and philosophy

Once you have the market data, decide where you want to position each role. A one-size-fits-all approach doesn't work, no matter how tempting it is.

Three positioning options:

• Lead the market (target 75th percentile): use this for roles that are hard to fill or business-critical. You're paying a premium to win top talent fast.
• Match the market (target 50th percentile): the default for most roles. You're competitive without overpaying.
• Lag the market (below 50th percentile): generally unsustainable for recruitment. If budget constraints force this for non-critical roles, it must be a conscious decision, and you'll need strong variable pay or exceptional benefits to compensate.

“Different roles deserve different strategies. Your data engineering team might need 75th percentile positioning, while your administrative functions sit comfortably at median.”

– Virgile Raingeard, Figures CEO and ex-HR 

How to talk about pay: recruiter scripts and best practices

Now, your salary ranges might be perfect. Great for the job level, location, and market rate. But unless you can talk the talk, candidates will still walk. 

Not to worry, we’ve got your back. We’ll walk you through what to say at each stage of the recruiting process. 

On the job description

During the first recruiter screen

"Just to be transparent, the salary range for this position is £55,000 to £65,000. Does that align with your expectations?"

You might find it strange to bring it up again, especially if you included the salary range in your job ad. Well, quick spoiler, you’ll also bring it up again in your offer stage, too. 

But there is a reason you’re doing this. For one, it shows that you value transparency. For two, it ensures that you dispel any ideas that your range is up for negotiation. They can negotiate where they fall in that range if they get the job.  

During the offer stage

"We're thrilled to offer you the position of [Job Title] at £[X]. Based on our market data for this role's level and location, this places you at the [X]th percentile among comparable companies. On top of the base salary, our benefits package includes..."

On the topic of benefits, it’s always good to remember: benefits complement a fair base salary, they never substitute for it! At the end of the day, a dental package and a gym membership aren’t going to pay for your weekly shop and rent.

🤔Interesting fact: flexible working tops the benefit wishlist for four in five workers (80%) who say it's improved their quality of life, but this matters after the salary is deemed fair.

Preparing your internal team

Before you post the first job with a public range, hold a session with managers. Explain that this is a strategic shift towards a fairer, more consistent, and more competitive hiring process. Frame it as a positive step that benefits everyone. And then actually make it a positive step that benefits everyone. That means paying your other employees fairly. 

Your managers are on the front line. Provide them with:

• Talking points for handling employee questions.
• Access to internal salary band data for their team.
• Confidence to explain where each employee sits within their range and why.

Before you go live, run an analysis to flag for pay compression, i.e., employees paid less than the minimum of your new public-facing ranges. It's critical to have a plan to address these gaps through market adjustments to maintain internal equity and morale.

From single hire to a scalable strategy: the Figures solution

Benchmarking one role manually? Fine. Doing this with spreadsheets for every role across your organisation? You must be the HR version of Dante Alighieri himself, and you’ve likely abandoned all hope already.

Consider Treatwell, a beauty-tech company operating in 13 European markets. Talya Avram, their Director of Talent Acquisition, was drowning in manually created spreadsheets with skewed data. By adopting a real-time data platform, they empowered managers, managed recruitment budgets across all 13 countries, and confidently planned for hiring 600 new roles.

This is where you move from fighting fires to building systems by using reliable software like Figures, which scales with your business and needs. 

What Figures delivers:

• Real-time benchmarking: Instant access to 3.5 million data points, updated monthly. Set filters for job level, location, industry, and company size in seconds.

• Structured salary bands: Build and manage your entire company's compensation framework. Welcome to the Jungle used this to create a transparent career progression that employees actually understand.

• Exception governance: When a unicorn candidate (metaphorically speaking, unless you’re in Scotland) demands pay outside your bands, justify it with data, get senior sign-off, and document the business case – keeping exceptions strategic, not systemic.
• Compensation review automation: Centralise performance reviews with data-driven recommendations. Managers get clear guidance, HR saves weeks of work, and you have the ammunition to budget for merit cycles with finance.

"Market data is only valuable if it's current and you can act on it. That's why we built a platform that doesn't just show you the numbers - it helps you implement fair, competitive compensation at scale."

– Virgile Raingeard, Figures CEO and ex-HR

What makes Figures different:

• European focus: Deep UK and EU market data, not US-centric benchmarks.
• Security: SOC 2, ISO 27001, and GDPR compliant – the only platform with all three.
• Integrations: Connects with 30+ HRIS systems for automatic updates.

Prove your impact: metrics to track

Once you post your first transparent salary range, measure what changes:

• Applicants per role (expect fewer, but higher quality).
• Qualified candidate rate (should increase).
• Time-to-offer (should decrease).
• Offer acceptance rate (should improve).

Be sure to measure changes internally, too: 

• Compa-ratio spread across roles (are people clustering at min, mid, or max of their bands?)
• Exception frequency (how often are you breaking your own ranges?)

‼️We recommend making checks at least twice annually for all roles. For hot, hard-to-fill positions, add a mid-cycle check to ensure your ranges haven't fallen behind fast-moving markets.

Recruit the talent you deserve with competitive pay

Winning top talent isn’t difficult… as long as you care about transparency. By ditching vague phrases and embracing transparency, you shift from a reactive bidder to a proactive employer of choice.

A data-driven approach doesn't just help you recruit. It helps you retain talent, build trust, and give you a basis for UK gender pay gap reporting and new regulations like the EU Pay Transparency Directive if you’ve got offices in EU territories.

While your competitors are still debating whether to post a salary range, you could be making confident, data-backed offers that attract the best candidates in the market.

And if you’re looking to build compensation structures that work, Figures can help! Book a free demo and discover how Figures helps you benchmark, structure, and communicate compensation that wins.