Pay Transparency Salary Band Generator

A salary band defines the minimum and maximum pay for a role, with a midpoint anchored to market benchmarks. The EU Pay Transparency Directive will require employers to give candidates the starting salary or pay range before interview. Ireland has said it will miss the 7 June 2026 deadline and phase the rules in, but a defensible band already shows candidates, and later regulators, that pay decisions are structured rather than arbitrary.

A band width of 25–30% around the midpoint (roughly P25 to P75) is common practice; the directive itself doesn't set a width. Narrower bands (under 15%) leave little room for performance differentiation; bands wider than 40% are difficult to defend in pay audits. The generator uses market P25/P75 for mid-level roles and ±15% from an experience-adjusted midpoint for junior and senior levels.

The directive was due in national law by 7 June 2026, but Ireland has confirmed it will miss that date and bring the rules in on a phased basis. Once in force, employers must give candidates the starting salary or range before interview, stop asking about salary history, let employees request pay data by gender, and, for larger employers, report their gender pay gap, with a joint pay assessment if an unexplained gap of 5% or more persists. The salary band generator helps you build a range you can publish now.

After generating a salary band, the internal equity checker lets you paste current employee salaries to see how your existing team maps against the new band. Each salary is classified into one of five zones: below floor, lower quarter, compressed around midpoint, upper quarter, or above ceiling. The tool calculates a compa-ratio (actual salary divided by band midpoint) for each person and flags three risk conditions: employees below the floor (equal-pay and directive risk), employees above the ceiling (band anchor may be set too low), and salary compression (too many employees clustered within 5% of the midpoint). No names are needed and no data is sent to a server.

For the legal context behind the floor breach risk, see the pay transparency Ireland guide and how to set tech salary bands in Ireland.

A compa-ratio compares an employee's actual salary to the midpoint of their salary band, expressed as a decimal. A ratio of 1.00 means the person is paid exactly at market midpoint. Ratios below 0.95 indicate the employee is in the lower part of the band; ratios above 1.05 put them in the upper part. Ratios below 0.80 (below band floor) or above 1.20 (above band ceiling) signal that the person's pay is outside the structured range entirely. In a healthy pay structure, compa-ratios are spread across the band rather than clustered tightly around 1.00.

The band midpoint in this tool is anchored to the market median for the selected role. See the full benchmark data on the Ireland tech salary pages or UK tech salary pages.

Salary compression happens when employees at different experience and performance levels are paid too similarly, typically because annual increases have not kept pace with market movements or because new hires are brought in at salaries close to what longer-serving staff earn. The equity checker flags compression when more than 40% of entered salaries sit within 5% of the band midpoint. Compressed pay structures are a leading predictor of attrition among high performers, who often discover the gap only when benchmarking against market data or a colleague's offer letter.

The skill-based pay guide for Ireland covers how structured pay differentiation within a band reduces compression over time.

An employee paid below a published salary floor creates direct risk under the EU Pay Transparency Directive: employees have the right to request pay comparison data, and a floor breach is hard to defend in an audit. The recommended response is to create a remediation plan targeting the next salary review cycle rather than making immediate off-cycle adjustments, unless the gap is severe. Larger employers will also have to report their gender pay gap, and an unexplained gap of 5% or more triggers a joint pay assessment, where below-floor salaries stand out.

Read more: Pay Transparency in Ireland: what changed in 2026 and how to set tech salary bands in Ireland.

Salaries above a band ceiling usually indicate one of three things: the band midpoint is anchored below current market rates and needs to be rebased; the employee has been promoted in responsibility without a formal regrade; or legacy retention increases have accumulated beyond the structured range. The recommended fix is to review the band anchor against current market benchmarks first. If the market has moved and the band is genuinely stale, rebasing the whole band is preferable to treating above-ceiling employees as exceptions.

Check whether the market has shifted using the Ireland tech salary benchmarks or UK tech salary benchmarks, then follow the band-setting guide to rebase.

For Ireland, the employer cost adds Employer PRSI (11.25%, rising to 11.40% from October 2026) and MyFutureFund auto-enrolment pension (1.5% on pay up to €80,000) to the midpoint salary. For the UK, it adds Employer National Insurance (15% on income above the £5,000 secondary threshold). Both figures exclude statutory sick pay, health insurance, equipment, and recruitment fees.

For a full breakdown including sick pay, equipment, and recruitment fees, use the Ireland employer cost calculator or the UK startup team budget calculator.

The generator is benchmarked from published tech market salary data for software, data, cloud, security, product, and design roles. Salary ranges for non-tech functions (operations, finance, legal) follow different market dynamics and are not covered by this tool.

The midpoint of the generated band is derived from the market median for the selected role and seniority level. For mid-level roles, it closely tracks the P50 benchmark. For other seniority levels, a multiplier is applied to the median to approximate the market rate at that experience level. The floor and ceiling are then set at the market P25 and P75 (for mid) or at ±15% from the adjusted midpoint (for other levels).

The full P10, P25, P50, P75, and P90 benchmark data by role is available on the Ireland salary benchmarks and UK salary benchmarks pages, with seniority band data on each individual role page.