Salary transparency has been a legal reality in Australia for three years — and most marketing job ads still won't show you the number. This week marks three years since pay secrecy clauses were banned under the Fair Work Act. Yet of the 3,392 Australian marketing roles we're tracking right now, just 17.5% — barely one in six — tell you what they pay before you apply. The other five make you guess, apply, interview and wait, all to discover whether the money was ever in your range.
That gap between what the law allows and what employers actually do is quietly costing Australian businesses good candidates. Here's what our data shows, why the silence persists, and a warmer way to settle pay early.
What is salary transparency?
Salary transparency is the practice of openly sharing pay information — most visibly, publishing a salary range in a job ad so candidates know what a role pays before they apply. In Australia it also covers an employee's protected right to discuss their own pay, which has been law since 2023. Showing a range in your ad is not yet mandatory here; choosing to hide it is a decision, not a requirement.
Only one in six marketing ads show the pay
Across the roles we track — permanent, contract, freelance and fractional marketing jobs advertised right around Australia — salary transparency is the exception, not the rule. Only 17.5% of in-scope ads disclose a salary. For the other 82.5%, the pay is a blank you fill in with hope.
Where employers do disclose, here are the midpoints we see by discipline (annual, our data, roles advertised 9 March–7 June 2026):
| Discipline | Median advertised pay (where disclosed) |
|---|---|
| Growth & acquisition | ~$125,000 |
| Paid & performance | ~$100,000 |
| SEO | ~$95,000 |
| Digital | ~$90,000 |
| Ecommerce | ~$87,500 |
| General marketing | ~$87,500 |
| Social & content | ~$85,000 |
Two things stand out. The commercial, revenue-facing specialisms — growth, paid media, SEO — sit at the top, while the highest-volume category (general marketing) sits mid-pack. And because only one ad in six shows a number at all, even these midpoints rest on a thin slice of the market. For the full picture, our digital marketing salary guide for 2026 breaks down what the live market is actually paying.
Three years on, the law moved but the ads didn't
On 7 June 2023, pay secrecy clauses became unenforceable in Australia. Under section 333B of the Fair Work Act, every employee and job applicant now has a protected workplace right to share — or not share — what they earn (Fair Work Ombudsman). Contracts can no longer gag staff from comparing notes.
That reform was aimed squarely at the pay gap. The national gender pay gap still sits at 11.5% on base salary and 21.1% on total remuneration across the private sector (WGEA, 2024–25), and open pay is one of the clearest levers for closing it. The catch: the law protects your right to talk about pay once you're in a role. It doesn't require an employer to put a range in the ad. So three years on, the right to discuss pay is settled, but the habit of advertising it has barely shifted — our 17.5% is proof.
What hiding the salary actually costs you
Leaving the number off feels safe. It rarely is. When a marketing ad hides pay, the hidden costs land on the hiring side:
- Wasted applications on both sides. Strong candidates who'd be a fit self-select out, while people well outside your band apply anyway. You sift more to find less.
- Slower closes. The money conversation simply moves to the end of the process — after first interviews, reference checks and a verbal lean-in — where a mismatch is far more expensive to discover.
- A narrower, less diverse pool. The candidates most likely to walk away from a blank salary are often the ones already underpaid relative to the market. Silence protects the gap.
- Eroded trust before day one. If the first thing a candidate learns about you is that you wouldn't say what the job pays, that sets the tone for everything after.
None of this means you must publish a number to the public web. It means the pay conversation has to happen honestly and early — with whoever's in front of you.
How a referral network settles pay early
This is where a considered approach to hiring in 2026 beats the open-applicant scramble. Kindred Talent is a referral network — warm introductions between people we already know. Because we know both sides, the pay conversation isn't an awkward reveal at the end. It happens up front, in plain numbers, before anyone wastes a week.
Across our three pillars, that early honesty shows up in the work. On People, we tell a candidate the real band before the first call, and we tell you what the market is paying for the skills you need — so you're negotiating from facts, not bluffing past a blank field. On Partners, we make warm referrals to independent agencies whose pricing is clear. On Platforms, we introduce the analytics and marketing tools to back your decisions. It's a model built for fit, and it shows: 94% of our placements are still in the role at six months.
Open pay also makes flexible hiring far easier to plan. If you're weighing a permanent hire against contract or fractional cover, settling rates early is half the battle — our guide to building a flexible marketing team in 2026 and our breakdown of which engagement model you actually need both start from the same place: know the number, then choose the shape.
The bottom line
Salary transparency is no longer a legal risk in Australia — it's a competitive choice. With only 17.5% of marketing ads showing pay, the employers who name a real range, or settle it honestly in a first conversation, stand out fast. You don't need to publish your bands to the world. You do need the pay conversation to be early, honest and based on what the market really pays. That's exactly the conversation a referral network is built to have.
Frequently asked questions
Do Australian employers have to put a salary in job ads?
No. There's no law requiring a salary range in an Australian job ad. What changed in June 2023 is that pay secrecy clauses are banned — employees and applicants have a protected right to discuss their own pay. Showing a range in the ad remains voluntary, which is why most still don't.
What salary range should a marketing job ad show?
A genuine, reasonably tight band tied to the role's level and discipline — not a $50k spread that tells a candidate nothing. As a rough guide from the roles we track, growth and paid-media specialists tend to sit higher than generalist marketing roles. If you'd rather not publish a number, settle it honestly in the first conversation instead.
Does showing the salary get you better candidates?
In the roles we track, ads that name pay tend to draw better-matched applicants and move faster, because people outside the band self-select out early. The cost of hiding pay isn't avoided — it just shifts to the end of the process, where a mismatch is more expensive to fix.
Is hiding salary linked to the gender pay gap?
Pay secrecy makes it harder to spot and challenge unequal pay, which is why Australia's reforms targeted it. With the national gender pay gap still at 11.5% on base salary (WGEA), open pay is one of the clearest levers for closing it.
Thinking about your next marketing hire and want the pay conversation to be straight from the start? Have a chat with us — tell us what you're trying to grow.
By Wylan Ho