How to use pay transparency to find out if you are underpaid — and what to do when you are

For most of recent history, finding out whether you are underpaid has been a matter of piecing together fragments. Glassdoor averages. Salary survey ranges. An awkward conversation with a colleague. Guesswork anchored in incomplete data.

In 2026, that has changed — significantly, and in ways most employees have not yet realised.

A wave of pay transparency legislation, accelerating across the EU, the US, the UK, and beyond, has created something that did not broadly exist before: a legal right, in many jurisdictions, to know what your employer is willing to pay for your role. In the European Union, the Pay Transparency Directive came into force in June 2026, requiring employers to give employees the right to request average pay data for colleagues doing equivalent work. In the US, sixteen states now require salary ranges in job postings — including California, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, Colorado, and Washington. In the UK, gender pay gap reporting requirements cover large employers, with further transparency obligations arriving from 2027.

The legislation is written about constantly. What is almost never written about is how an individual woman uses these rights to find out if she is underpaid — and then what she actually does about it.

This article is for that conversation.

The thing most people don't realise they can already do

Before any formal request, before any difficult conversation, there is a source of market data that most people walk past every day without using it.

When a company posts an open vacancy for a role at your level — your job title, your scope, your grade — it is often legally required to include the salary range for that role. If your employer is large and posts jobs in California, New York, Colorado, Illinois, Washington, or any other transparency jurisdiction, that range is visible to anyone who finds the posting.

That range is your market data. It is your employer's current assessment of what the role you are doing is worth to them, expressed as a number they are willing to put in public.

If you are currently earning below the bottom of that range for your own role — or if new hires are being recruited at salaries higher than yours — you have an underpayment case grounded in your own employer's stated position, not in external benchmarks they can dispute.

How to find it:

1. Search your employer's careers page and major job sites (LinkedIn, Indeed, Glassdoor) for open roles at your level.
2. Look for roles in states or countries with disclosure requirements — California postings must include a range by law; so must New York, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Washington state.
3. Note the full range, the date of the posting, and the job title as listed.

If the range is not posted — and many employers still post vaguely even where required — that is itself a signal, and you have grounds to request the range formally (more on this below).

What the law now gives you the right to ask for

Pay transparency legislation in 2026 is not uniform — it varies by country, state, and company size — but several rights have now become broadly established across major jurisdictions.

In the European Union (June 2026 onwards):

Employees at companies in EU member states now have the right to request information about their individual pay level and the average pay levels of colleagues doing the same work or work of equal value, broken down by gender. Employers have two months to respond. They cannot retaliate against you for asking. Contractual clauses that previously required pay secrecy are now invalid.

This is a substantive right, not a suggestion. If you are in an EU country and you ask your employer for this information, they are legally required to provide it.

In the US (varies by state):

In states with salary range disclosure requirements, employees are generally entitled to know the pay range for their current role or any role they are being considered for. The specifics vary: some states require proactive disclosure, others require disclosure on request. The NLRA — the National Labor Relations Act — protects employees across all US states from retaliation for discussing their pay with colleagues. That protection applies regardless of any state-specific transparency law.

In the UK:

UK employers with 250 or more employees must publish gender pay gap data annually. While the UK has not implemented the EU Directive, employees retain the right under general employment law to discuss pay with colleagues, and data from gender pay gap reporting is publicly available and searchable for your employer.

Switzerland:

The Gender Equality Act requires employers with 100 or more employees to conduct internal pay equity analyses every four years and share the results with employees. If your employer is subject to this requirement, the results are information you are entitled to see.

“In the EU, you now have a legal right to request the average pay of colleagues doing equivalent work. Employers have two months to respond, cannot retaliate, and cannot stop you from discussing your pay with colleagues. That right came into force in June 2026.”

Three sources that tell you if you are underpaid

Even before making a formal request, you can build a strong picture from sources that require no internal conversation at all.

Source 1 — Your employer's own job postings.

As described above: if your employer posts salary ranges for roles at your level, those ranges are your first data point. You are looking for the current range, not the range when you were hired. Markets move. The range posted today reflects what the employer is prepared to pay now.

Source 2 — External market benchmarks.

LinkedIn Salary, Glassdoor, and Levels.fyi (for tech) aggregate anonymised salary data by role title, level, industry, and geography. These are imperfect — self-reported data has biases — but they give you a credible external reference. Use the median and the upper quartile for your role and location. If your current salary sits below the median after your most recent raise, you have a documented gap.

Source 3 — Your legal right to request internal data.

In EU jurisdictions, and in some US states including California, you have the right to request your employer's pay range for your current role. In the EU, you can go further and request average pay data for colleagues doing equivalent work, broken down by gender.

How to make that request formally:

“"I would like to formally request information about the pay range for my current role and the average pay levels for employees in equivalent positions, in line with my rights under [the EU Pay Transparency Directive / [State] salary transparency law]. I understand that you are required to respond within [two months / the timeframe specified by applicable law]."”

Send this in writing — by email — and keep a copy. The request creates a paper trail that matters if you later need to escalate.

What you might find

When you put the three sources together, you will land in one of three situations.

Your pay is within the market range and your employer's posted range. This is possible. Markets change, roles evolve, and not every suspicion of underpayment is confirmed by data. If the numbers come back roughly aligned, you now have useful context for your next raise conversation — and you have established the habit of checking.

Your pay is below the market range but within your employer's posted range. This means you are at the lower end of what the employer considers acceptable — but not outside it. The negotiation case here is about moving toward the middle or upper end of the range, grounded in your results and your tenure. This is winnable.

Your pay is below your employer's posted range, or below the average for colleagues doing equivalent work. This is the clearest underpayment case, and it is more common than most people expect. Research on pay band placement consistently shows that women are placed at lower points within salary bands than male colleagues doing equivalent work — even when performance ratings are similar. If this is what you find, you have a strong, data-backed case that does not rely on external benchmarks the employer can dismiss.

The conversation: what to say

Once you have the data, the conversation is not an accusation — it is a professional inquiry that puts the evidence on the table and asks for an explanation.

Opening:

Keep the subject line of the meeting request neutral. "A conversation about my compensation" is fine. Do not signal the data you have found in advance — you want the meeting to be a dialogue, not a defensive briefing.

In the meeting:

“"I've been looking at the market rate for my role, and I've also looked at the salary range posted for [equivalent role / my role] on [job site / your careers page]. The range listed is [X to Y]. My current salary is [Z], which sits [below the posted range / at the lower end of the external market range]. I'd like to understand how my compensation is positioned relative to both of those references, and discuss what it would take to close the gap."”

Three things this does: it presents data, not emotion. It references your employer's own numbers, which are harder to dispute than external benchmarks. And it opens a dialogue — "I'd like to understand" — rather than making a demand that closes the conversation before it begins.

If the data includes a gender pay gap:

“"I also noticed, looking at the gender pay gap data [from your employer's published report / from my request under the Pay Transparency Directive], that there is a [X%] gap in my category. I'd like to understand whether my situation contributes to that gap and what the company is doing to address it."”

This is a precise, factual question that puts the employer on the defensive in the right way — it connects your individual situation to a documented organisational pattern rather than a personal grievance. It is also the question that is most likely to produce action, because it connects to regulatory risk.

Talking to colleagues about pay

In every major jurisdiction, employees have the right to discuss their pay with colleagues. In the US, this right is protected by the NLRA. In the EU, the Pay Transparency Directive makes pay secrecy clauses in contracts invalid from June 2026. In the UK, employees cannot be disciplined for discussing pay in most circumstances.

If your employer has a policy or culture discouraging pay discussions — including informal norms, not just written policies — that culture is working against you specifically. Research consistently shows that pay secrecy disproportionately benefits employers and disproportionately harms women, who are more likely to be placed at the lower end of bands in opaque pay structures.

You do not need to ask a colleague their exact salary to have a useful conversation. Starting points:

Or, if you have established trust:

These conversations are protected. They are also, in many cases, the fastest route to concrete information.

If your employer refuses to provide the information

In jurisdictions with transparency requirements, a refusal to provide salary range information or pay comparison data is a legal issue, not a negotiating position.

Document the refusal in writing:

If the response is delayed beyond the legally required window (two months in the EU), or if you receive a flat refusal, you have grounds to escalate — to HR, to your employer's legal or compliance team, or in EU jurisdictions, to the national enforcement body designated under the Directive.

Most employers, when confronted with a written request that explicitly references their legal obligations, will provide the information rather than expose themselves to regulatory risk. The request alone often does more work than the information it produces.

What you are entitled to ask for once you have confirmed underpayment

When the data confirms a gap, you have a specific, documented case. The conversation that follows is not a raise negotiation in the traditional sense — it is a correction request, grounded in evidence.

The ask:

“"Based on the market data and the information I've received about pay ranges for my role, my current salary of [X] sits [below the posted range / below the median / below the average for equivalent roles]. I'd like to discuss bringing my compensation in line with [the market / the posted range / the average for my category]. What's the process for doing that?"”

The closing question — "what's the process for doing that?" — is deliberate. It treats the adjustment as an administrative matter rather than a request for a favour. It implies that such a process exists, which it usually does, and invites your manager or HR to describe it rather than to approve or deny it in the moment.

One thing the law cannot do

Pay transparency laws are genuinely significant, and in 2026 they represent the most meaningful structural shift in women's ability to identify and address underpayment in recent decades. But they have a limit worth naming.

Transparency reveals gaps. It does not close them automatically. Research on pay transparency outcomes — including studies of Denmark's transparency law, which is the most studied example — shows that transparency tends to reduce the wage gap by compressing pay at the top rather than raising pay at the bottom. Women in companies with new transparency requirements do not automatically receive increases; they receive information. What happens with that information depends on whether they use it.

This article is about using it.

What to do this week

1. Search your employer's current job postings for roles at your level. Note the salary range if posted.
2. Check LinkedIn Salary and Glassdoor for the market range for your role, level, and geography. Note the median and upper quartile.
3. If you are in an EU jurisdiction, draft the formal request for pay range and average pay data. Send it by email. Keep a copy.
4. If the data confirms a gap — against your employer's own posted range, external benchmarks, or both — schedule a meeting to discuss compensation. Use the scripts above.
5. If the data reveals a gender pay gap in your category, name it specifically in the conversation.

The information that was previously unavailable to you is now, in many jurisdictions, a legal right. The negotiation that follows is the same one it has always been. The difference is what you are walking into it with.