The salary index
“Competitive salary.” Compared to what?
Every month we count how many startup job adverts state what the role pays. The method is published, the sample is stated, and no company is named.
Updated monthly · last count August 202696%Of open startup roles in our index do not state pay anywhere in the advert. Every advert open in August 2026 at the 239 startups that were hiring, out of an index of 11,076 tech startups.
100%Of roles on The NOD state a range. It is a mandatory field. A role without one cannot be published, by any company, in any market, with no exception for a customer of any size.
Method
How we count.
Published so it can be argued with. If the method is wrong we would rather be told than be right by nobody checking.
The sampleAn index of 11,076 tech startups at every stage, from bootstrapped to listed, built from the public startup job boards they post on. In August 2026, 239 of them were advertising at all, and all 1,173 of those adverts are counted. The index is Nordic by headquarters — Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland — and the roles sit wherever those companies hire, which this month included the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Poland.
What counts as stating payA number or a range, in the advert, in the local currency. “Competitive”, “market rate”, “depending on experience” and “negotiable” do not count, because none of them lets a person decide whether to apply.
What we do not doWe do not name companies. We do not rank them. We do not contact anybody about their result, and there is no list to get off.
What we might be getting wrongA company may state pay somewhere the advert does not reach, and we would not see it. The count measures the advert, which is the thing a candidate actually reads.
Context
What the law now asks for.
The EU Pay Transparency Directive had to be transposed by member states in June 2026. Read this as orientation and check your own market with counsel; transposition is not identical across the ten.
Pay information before the interviewApplicants must be told the initial pay or its range before the interview, in the vacancy notice or otherwise beforehand. Some member states have gone further and require it in the advert itself.
No asking about pay historyEmployers may not ask candidates what they currently earn or have earned.
The obligation is the employer’sNot the job board’s and not the agency’s. An intermediary writing the advert is passing on a decision the employer made.
This index is not a compliance testIt counts what adverts say. A role missing from the advert is not necessarily a breach, and we will not describe it as one.
The dare
If it is competitive, print it.
Three things any company can do this afternoon, none of which require us.
Put a range on the advertNot a point, a range you would honour. It is the single largest cause of wasted applications on every channel that exists.
Cut the requirements to fiveIf everything is essential, nobody can tell what matters, so everybody applies and the pile buries the people who qualified.
Name who replies, and by whenA person and a date. Silence is the reason the good ones stopped applying to you.
Every role on The NOD states what it pays.
It is a mandatory field, not a policy. Free to post, billed only on a yes.