Knowing what you’re paid isn’t the same as knowing why |
Knowing what you’re paid isn’t the same as knowing why
Transparency can make unexplained inequality easier to see, question and correct.
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Entry-level salaries are improving, median salaries are increasing and we’re finally getting better at showing people what agencies pay. Yet we're still not good enough at explaining how those pay decisions are made.
Campaign’s annual Salary Survey is a useful and constructive step forward. It reports that average entry-level agency pay reached £28,125 in 2025 up 5%, while median salaries rose to £58,222, up 2%, which was above the inflation increase of 0.9% for the same period.
It also found that smaller agencies recorded higher entry-level and median salaries than larger agencies. And that’s interesting, particularly for those of us working in independent agencies. But we’ll hold the high-fives for now.
As Campaign rightly cautions, averages reflect the shape of an organisation as much as the fairness of its pay. A smaller agency may have a greater proportion of senior people. A larger one may employ more graduates, apprentices and junior specialists. You get the gist. The data does not, by itself, tell us whether two comparable employees are being treated equally.
And that distinction is important.
External salary benchmarks are valuable. They help talent broadly understand the market. They make obvious underpayment harder to hide.........