UK employers are facing growing pressure over pay and promotion decisions, with most people managers saying their choices are being challenged despite claiming they are fair and evidence-based.
New research shows that while 83 percent of managers believe they can clearly justify salary and promotion outcomes with supporting data, more than three quarters have seen those decisions formally appealed in the past year.
The study, by HR platform HiBob, found that 78 percent of managers had faced challenges over setting or adjusting base pay, 78 percent over performance ratings that influence pay, and 76 percent over promotion allocations.
The figures suggest a widening gap between how organisations believe they are managing pay and how employees experience the process.
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Data gaps damaging outcomes
The consequences of poor information are already being felt across workplaces.
More than nine in 10 managers said a lack of timely and relevant people or financial data had contributed to a negative team outcome in the past 12 months.
Thirty percent said it had played a large or very large role in a high performer being underpaid or under-recognised. More than a quarter said the same data gaps had contributed to promotions being awarded before individuals were ready.
The problems extend beyond individual employees. Almost a quarter of managers said pay budgets had been misallocated, while 29 percent linked declining engagement and morale to perceived unfairness caused by weak or inconsistent information.
Concerns about consistency appear to sit at the heart of the issue, as more than two thirds of managers worried that similar roles were being assessed using different criteria in different parts of the business.
A similar proportion said they could not ensure fair pay decisions without a unified view of people and financial data.
Decisions made under pressure
The research indicates that the problem is not a shortage of data but the difficulty of accessing and combining it effectively.
Although most managers reported having access to HR information and finance information, over half said they spent at least three hours pulling material together from multiple systems before making a single decision. Fifteen percent said the process took more than five hours.
Under that pressure, many managers admitted they resorted to guesswork. Nearly two thirds said that when gathering the right data felt too difficult or time-consuming, they made an educated guess rather than miss a deadline.
Only two percent of managers currently have access to a single dashboard that brings together HR and finance data in one place, leaving most organisations reliant on spreadsheets and disconnected systems.
Toby Hough, vice president of people and culture for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at HiBob, said the gap between HR and finance was becoming harder to ignore.
“Bringing HR and finance together has never been an easy brief,” he said. “These teams work to different rhythms, different priorities, and often from different versions of the truth.”
“But as scrutiny on pay and progression increases, that gap is becoming impossible to ignore.”
Hough said the lack of alignment made decisions both slower and more vulnerable to challenge.
“When people and financial data aren’t aligned, decisions take longer, feel harder to defend, and are far more likely to be challenged,” he said.
“Unifying that data doesn’t just make decisions faster; it makes them fairer. It gives leaders the confidence that the choices they’re making are in the best interests of both the business and their people, and that’s going to matter more than ever as we move into 2026 and beyond.”
Risk to trust and retention
The findings point to a growing trust problem inside organisations.
Employees are increasingly questioning how pay and promotions are decided, and managers themselves are unsure they have the tools to respond effectively.
Where processes are perceived as inconsistent or opaque, the impact can quickly spread beyond individual cases to affect engagement, productivity and retention.
The study suggests that fragmented systems and poor data access are now becoming a material business risk. Decisions that attempt to balance performance, fairness and cost control are being made without a clear and shared picture of the facts.
What organisations need to change
The research argues that the starting point for closing the fairness gap is better integration of information.
Managers need a single, reliable view of pay, performance and people data if they are to make consistent decisions and explain them credibly.
Without that, even well-intentioned leaders are likely to continue facing appeals, complaints and declining confidence from their teams.
The survey was carried out by independent research company Censuswide between late December 2025 and early January 2026. Responses were collected from 4,700 people managers across multiple regions, including 500 managers based in the UK.
All participants worked full-time in organisations with between 50 and 5,000 employees and had direct responsibility for at least one member of staff.
