worth. — get the salary before you apply

Why I built this

Employers know what they want from you. They're less forthcoming about what they'll pay.

Seven years' experience. Three direct reports. Full budget responsibility. Salary? "Competitive."

Even when there's a number, is it fair for the work involved? Could you earn more doing the same job elsewhere?

You shouldn't have to guess. But when you need a job, it's easy to worry about asking for too much. You base your expectations on what you earn now, and an old salary follows you into a new role. If you were underpaid before, you can end up underpaid again.

Employers can do better. Asking people to commit their time, skills and energy deserves an honest conversation about money.

Worth gives you somewhere firmer to start: a salary estimate that both you and the employer can see, with the working shown. So you can judge the offer and ask questions with a bit more confidence.

Some of my jobs haven't been well paid, and I did more work than the salary reflected. So I thought: why not give job seekers more information to tip the scales?

How it works

Three steps, about ten seconds.

1

Paste the link

Grab a link to an ad on Reed or another job board and paste it here. You can also paste the ad's text instead, or get the Chrome extension.

2

worth. gets to work

It looks at the job spec: how much work is involved, whether you'd be managing people, and how rare the skills are. That becomes about 70 markers of a fairly paid job, including where the job is.

3

You get a score

worth. tells you whether the ad is fair and whether the salary matches what the role expects. It also checks Companies House, so you know who you'd be working for. Every result shows its working.

Where the data comes from

Real UK job ads, mostly from Reed.

Source one

Job ads that publish a salary

I've collected real UK job ads that state their pay, and built a model that works out what's a fair ad and what's not so fair. It only uses what employers published. Nothing self-reported.

1,449 ads with a published salary · mostly Reed

Source two

Companies House

worth. also looks up the employer at Companies House: whether it's active, how old and how big it is, its accounts and its directors. They can look you up, so it's only fair you can look them up too.

Official UK company records

How an ad gets read. Every ad is read by Jev, an AI model from TypeSafe. It answers the same 25 questions about every ad: what the work is, how senior it is, how much you'd be responsible for, how rare the skills are. The salary is hidden while it reads, so it can't sway the answers. Those answers are compared with ads that ask for the same things and publish their pay. Tested on ads it has never seen, the estimate is typically within 13% of the real salary. If an ad can't be read properly, we fall back to ONS earnings data and say so on the result.

What worth. can't do

A short list, and we'd rather be held to it.

01It's not meant for negotiation
It tells you what the role is worth. What you do with that is up to you.
02No data is sold
Not to employers, not to recruiters, not to anyone. There is no version of worth. where this changes.
03We don't publish job listings
No listings and no referral fees. If we earned money when you applied, you couldn't trust the estimate.
04It's not a gotcha for companies
It's a reference point for both sides, not a name-and-shame list. Employers can reply to their record, free.

Get the extension

Every ad you open, checked in one click.

Open a job ad, click the worth. icon, and the range and verdict appear in a side panel. It reads the ad from your own browser, so it works on boards that block us, LinkedIn included.

Coming soon to the Chrome Web Store.

Who's behind it

Just me, Andrew.

I started worth. because I see too many friends, family and LinkedIn comrades getting fed up with job ads being vague, not stating the salary, having a billion interview rounds and getting rejected. I know employers need assurances because everything is less certain, but job seekers need to know what they're getting themselves in for as well.

andrewbuildsthings.comCheck out my other projects too →

FAQ

Is my own salary ever used in an estimate?

No. Nothing you tell us enters any calculation, ever. Estimates come from salaries employers published in their own ads, so a user can't move a figure and neither can we.

What does the percentile mean?

It's where the ad's salary sits among roles that ask for the same things. The 60th percentile means it pays more than 60 in every 100 of those roles. The 25th means three in four pay more.

Why is it a range, not one number?

Because roles that ask for the same things genuinely pay different amounts. The headline range is where half of them fall; the wider one underneath is where four in five fall. We test both on ads the model has never seen, so the ranges mean what they say.

Why won't you count bonus or equity?

Because ads rarely state them in a way that can be compared, and a bonus you might get isn't the same as a salary you will get. Every estimate is base salary.

Can an employer get an estimate changed?

No. No one can pay us, or ask us, to change an estimate. The estimate comes from what the ad asks for, and it's the same for everyone who checks it. Employers can reply to their record, free.

How is this funded, if nothing is sold?

Job seekers never pay. The plan is for employers and recruiters to pay for labour-market benchmarking, which funds the free tool. Paying never buys a different estimate for your own ads.

Free for job seekers

Candidates don't pay to know what they're worth.

Employers and recruiters will pay for labour-market benchmarking, and that funds the free tool. No employer can pay us to change an estimate — for their own ads or anyone else's.

Check a job

Know your worth.Get the salary before you apply.