How to Find the Salary When a Job Ad Doesn't Show One
If a UK tech job ad has no salary, the best benchmark is the advertised salary for the same role and seniority, for example £50k for a mid-level software engineer or £68k for a mid-level data engineer. You will need one often: of the 1,955 tech ads that employers posted themselves on salaryshown.com on 26 October 2026, only 404 (21%) show a salary. The rest of this post shows how to build a benchmark and what to ask.
Step 1: Find the role and level
Start with the job title and the level the ad implies (junior, mid-level, senior, lead or head). Titles vary between employers, so pick the closest match. Do not average across levels: the gap between a mid-level and a lead ad is often larger than the gap between two roles.
Step 2: Read the advertised median for that level
These are the median advertised salaries by seniority on our salary guides, taken on 26 October 2026. A dash means the guide did not list that level. The figure in brackets is the number of ads behind each median.
| Role | Junior | Mid-level | Senior | Lead / Staff | Head / Director |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Software engineer | £32k (52) | £50k (505) | £68k (159) | £70k (195) | £110k (17) |
| DevOps engineer | £28k (21) | £42k (423) | £56k (88) | £62k (134) | £85k (19) |
| Data engineer | - | £68k (53) | £72k (21) | £85k (19) | £135k (3) |
| Data analyst | £40k (4) | £50k (115) | £62k (21) | £70k (46) | £91k (18) |
| Data scientist | - | £60k (29) | £80k (14) | £115k (5) | £130k (3) |
| Machine learning engineer | £38k (3) | £82k (23) | £96k (21) | £125k (13) | - |
| Product manager | - | £70k (20) | £90k (5) | £55k (30) | £110k (7) |
Where a cell has fewer than about 10 ads, treat it as a rough guide. That covers the data analyst and machine learning engineer junior figures, the data scientist lead and head figures, the data engineer head figure, and the product manager senior and head figures. The product manager lead median (£55k, 30 ads) sits below the mid-level one (£70k); we have not looked into why.
Step 3: Allow for location and employer type
The median blends London and the rest of the UK. On the software engineer guide, the median advertised salary in London is £89k, against £52k elsewhere. Check the location split on the guide for your role before you decide a number is high or low.
Employer type matters too. Startups show a salary on only 18% of their ads, and the ones that do tend to advertise more than the all-UK median; our startup comparison has the figures and the small-sample warnings. If the employer is a startup with no salary on the ad, the all-UK median may be too low a benchmark.
Step 4: Ask for the band
An advertised median tells you what employers say in public. It does not tell you what this employer will offer. Ask early, and ask in a way that is easy to answer:
- In the first call or email, ask: "What is the salary range for this role?"
- If they ask for your expectations first, give a range based on the advertised figures for your level, and say where you got it.
- If they will not share a band, ask whether one exists and when it will be shared. Note the answer for later comparison.
- Compare any figure they give with the median for your level on the guide, and with the middle half range shown there.
The UK government has a consultation on pay in job adverts; our post on what tech ads show today covers how many currently show pay, and why we make no claim about the outcome.
Limits of this approach
- Advertised salary is not paid salary. Ads can show a range, and the offer can sit anywhere in or outside it.
- The medians come from ads that show pay. Roles that hide pay may be different, and we cannot see them.
- We list recruitment agency ads only when they state a salary. They count towards the medians, so they are over-represented there, but not towards the 21% share, which counts employers' own ads only.
- Small samples move a lot with one or two ads. The ad counts in the table are there so you can judge that.
For the full list of guides, see salary guides. To see roles that do show the salary, browse all jobs or the market data page.
Figures taken on 26 October 2026 from salaryshown.com. Salaries are base pay as published in job adverts.