Rewards analytics & compensation research

You have the data.
We have the analytical
engine you need.

Send us what you already hold. Offers you made, salaries you pay, people who left, a talent architecture that needs rebuilding. Or maybe nothing at all!

We turn your data, or sample data, into structures you can defend and templates you can reuse, anchored to deep statistics that are hiding in plain sight. You see the finished deliverable first, then you decide.

And if the data cannot leave your building, we ship you the model instead and you run it yourself.

No licensed survey data. Those licences forbid redistribution, so a report built on them cannot show its own working. Ours can.

Why call us?

One of these is usually the reason.

01
Two people doing the same job, forty percent apart, and nobody can explain why. It was defensible each time it happened. It is not defensible all at once.
02
You are about to publish a salary range and you do not have one. A job advert is a bad place to discover what your pay structure actually says.
03
You are down a person, or the headcount never came, and the deliverables did not stop. The work still has a date on it. The analyst who was going to do it does not.
04
Something has blown up and leadership wants a dashboard by Friday. Nobody has time to build it properly, which is precisely when it gets built badly.
05
Your annual salary guide is due and your researchers are on live searches. The report your market expects, competing for the hours that actually bill.
06
One counter offer just reset a structure that took a year to build. Every exception is a precedent, and precedents compound faster than budgets.
07
You inherited a structure that nobody documented. Every rule inside it made sense to somebody who has since left the company.
08
You want to walk into the room with something nobody asked you for. The analysis that changes a conversation is rarely the one already on the list.

Why the analysis matters

A raise is only a raise after inflation.

In 2022 a company in Warsaw awarded its team eight percent. Prices rose by 14.4 percent that year. It was a pay cut, delivered in a letter that said congratulations.

Consumer price inflation, 2022 to 2024
Annual percentage change. Source: World Bank, retrieved August 2026.
4% merit budget
8.0
4.1
2.9
7.9
6.8
3.3
14.4
11.5
3.8
United States2022 · 2023 · 2024
United Kingdom2022 · 2023 · 2024
Poland2022 · 2023 · 2024

Everything below the dashed line is a real increase. Everything above it is a real cut. In Poland in 2022 a four percent budget was worth minus 10.4 percent. The four percent line is an illustration, not a published figure. Your own budget, applied to your own locations, is the first thing we compute.

The work

A complete deliverable, not a capability deck.

Three working models you can pull apart right now, then a finished deliverable. Everything here runs on sample figures. The point is what happens when the numbers are yours.

Live models
Move the sliders. The analysis recomputes.
These are the same models we run against client data, stripped back to the controls that matter. Nothing is submitted anywhere.
Country
Year
Merit budget you awarded 4.0%
0.0%
real change in pay
You gave
4.0%
Prices rose
0.0%
Inflation is real data: World Bank, consumer prices, annual percentage change, retrieved August 2026. Real change shown as the simple difference, the convention used in merit planning.

And here is what a finished deliverable looks like. A full pay architecture for a fictional company of 180 people across three countries, sent in full before anyone asks.

Executive summary page showing the cost to bring everyone to range minimum and the saving from capping base pay
The two numbers leadership actually asks about
Compa ratio governance matrix mapping performance rating against position in range
The matrix that replaces negotiation with a rule
Pay transparency readiness assessment across six required capabilities
Readiness, and the one capability we do not claim

If it looks like something you would put your name on, tell us what you are trying to solve. If it does not, no conversation was needed.

You will not find a client list on this site

Most of what we produce is published under somebody else's name. A search firm's annual salary guide. A consultancy's band structure. A vendor's research report. The people reading those documents are not supposed to know we exist, and the firms who commission them are not looking for a case study about themselves.

So instead of logos, here is the thing a logo is meant to stand in for. The models above are live and you can break them. The deliverable is shown in full rather than described. The method is published in enough detail that you can check the arithmetic yourself. Judge the work, because that is all a reference would have told you anyway.

Discretion
White label by default. Your name on the cover, no attribution to us, written into the engagement rather than promised in conversation.
Contracting
A registered proprietorship. We sign your NDA and your paper, not ours, and we invoice against it.
Your data
An extract you choose, never system access. Returned or destroyed on completion, your choice, confirmed in writing.

Two ways to work

If you cannot share the data, take the model instead.

Pay data is the most sensitive data in the building. Plenty of leaders want the analysis and simply cannot send salaries to an outside domain, whether that is policy, legal, works council or instinct. That objection usually ends the conversation. Here it does not.

Option one

Send us the data

You share offers, payroll and attrition under an NDA. We build the analysis and hand back the finished deliverable.

  • Fastest route. Days rather than weeks, because nobody is learning a new tool.
  • Sharper analysis. We see the whole distribution, so we catch what a template cannot.
  • An extract, never system access. You choose the fields and export them. We do not connect to your HRIS.
  • Names are not needed. An employee ID, a grade, a location and a salary is enough for almost everything.
  • Data returned or destroyed on completion, your choice, confirmed in writing.
Right when the data can leave and you want the answer, not the machinery.
Option two

Take the model. Keep your data.

You send us nothing. We build the model against sample figures, ship you the whole package, and you drop your own numbers in behind your own firewall. We never see a salary.

  • An Excel model with live formulas, not pasted values. Change an input and every number downstream recalculates.
  • No macros. Macro enabled workbooks get blocked by enterprise IT, so there are none.
  • A dashboard as a single HTML file. Double click, it opens in any browser. No install, no server, no admin rights.
  • Works fully offline. Nothing phones home, nothing is transmitted. It will pass a security review because there is nothing to review.
  • A worked example pre filled with sample data, so you can see it running before you touch your own.
  • A one page runbook and a version stamp with file hashes, so a year from now you know exactly what you are looking at.
Most firms cannot offer this. When the product is a licensed dataset, the model is the asset, so handing it over ends the business. Ours is public data and transparent logic, which is precisely why we can give it to you.

What we can build you

Every one of these ships either way, as a finished deliverable or as a model you run yourself.

Interactive
  • Interactive dashboards
  • Interactive web pages
  • Scenario and what if calculators
  • Excel models with live formulas
  • Data entry templates with validation
  • Budget planning tools
Analytics
  • Attrition analytics
  • Heatmaps by grade, function and location
  • Compa ratio and range penetration
  • Offer acceptance curves
  • Cost to remediate modelling
  • Merit budget and real pay analysis
  • Pay gap grouping structure
Reports
  • Portfolio reports
  • Board and CFO decks
  • Print ready PDF reports
  • Annual salary guides, white label
  • Benchmarking summaries
  • Methodology appendices
Frameworks
  • Salary bands and job architecture
  • Level descriptors
  • Compa ratio governance matrices
  • Promotion and increment policy
  • Interview scorecards
  • Employee explainers
  • Manager one pagers
This is a starting point, not a menu.
If the thing you need is not on the list, describe it. We will tell you honestly whether we can build it, roughly what it would take, and if the answer is no we will say so rather than reshape your problem into something we already make.
Describe what you need

Not sure which route fits? Tell us what the constraint is and we will say which one we would pick in your position.

The difference

Four things a firm built on proprietary data cannot do.

None of these are claims about working harder. They are structural, and they are the reason this practice exists.

01
We publish the method
A firm whose advantage is a licensed dataset cannot show you how a number was made without destroying the asset it sells. Ours is public, so the derivation ships with the work. Every source named, every adjustment stated, every date recorded.
02
We work under your name
White label by default. Your logo, your foreword, your client relationship. We have no interest in being visible to the people you serve, which is exactly why firms that publish their own research use us.
03
We tell you what we did not assess
Every deliverable carries a limits page. Pay equity testing, individual placement, statutory compliance, all named as out of scope rather than quietly implied as covered. Clients tell us it is the page they read first.
04
You see the work before you commit
We build the analysis on your data and show you the finished deliverable. Then you decide whether there is a conversation to have. Nobody is asked to buy a description of something.

Engagements

Where most engagements start.

The capability list above is what we can build. These are the eight pieces of work people actually ask for, and any of them can arrive as a finished deliverable or as a model you run yourself.

01 · Pay architecture

Salary bands and job levelling

Grades, ranges, midpoint progression and overlap. A compa ratio matrix so managers apply a rule instead of negotiating. Level descriptors that settle a promotion argument in writing. Geographic differentials that move the whole range, so a promotion means the same thing in every country.

Built from your payroll, offer and attrition data
02 · Research

White label reports and salary guides

The annual guide your firm publishes, produced for you. Built on public official statistics with the derivation documented well enough that a sceptical reader can check it, which is what makes a prospect forward it internally rather than skim it.

Your brand on the cover, no attribution to us
03 · Readiness

Pay transparency preparation

You cannot publish a pay range you do not have. We build the structure that makes disclosure possible, quantify what it costs to bring everyone above their range minimum, and sequence the rollout so a job posting is not what tells your team.

Includes the remediation cost, computed on your headcount
04 · Communication

The explainer employees actually read

Most companies build a structure and never explain it, so nobody believes it. We write the plain language piece that answers the eight questions people really ask, including the awkward ones about why a colleague earns more.

Written to be handed straight to your whole company
05 · Capacity

The seat you have not filled yet

Somebody left, or the headcount never arrived, and the deliverables kept their deadlines. We become the analytical bench until you hire, and you brief us the way you would brief the person you are still interviewing for. When they do arrive, they inherit working models rather than a backlog.

Priced per deliverable, so there is nothing to unwind when you hire
06 · Rapid response

The dashboard you need by Friday

An acquisition lands, a regulator writes, a resignation cluster appears in one function, or a board paper is due. We build the working view fast, from whatever data actually exists, and we mark plainly what it cannot yet tell you. A crisis is the worst possible moment to be building something badly in a hurry.

Turnaround measured in days, with the gaps named rather than hidden
07 · Analytics

Why people leave, and what it costs

Attrition by grade, function, location, tenure and position in range, so the question stops being how many left and becomes which of them we were underpaying. Regretted against unregretted, the cost of replacement set beside the cost of remediation, and the offer acceptance curve that shows where you are losing candidates on money.

Runs on exit and offer data you almost certainly already hold
08 · Advisory

The analysis nobody asked for yet

Sometimes the useful question is what you should be measuring and are not. We look at what your data could support, then propose the two or three pieces of analysis that would change a leadership conversation, and say honestly which ones your data cannot yet carry. Then you decide whether any of them are worth building.

For when you want to bring an agenda rather than answer one

The method

Your data, anchored to public statistics.

Five steps. Each one is recorded in the deliverable, so any figure can be traced back to a source, a date and a stated adjustment.

STEP 01
Anchor
BLS Occupational Employment Statistics, ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, Eurostat, national statistics offices. Industry cuts, never national averages.
STEP 02
Age
Public wage data is always stale. We age it using the Employment Cost Index, never headline CPI, which is the most common analytical error in this work.
STEP 03
Level weight
Grades mapped to percentiles of the adjusted distribution, interpolated log linearly because wage distributions are skewed to the right.
STEP 04
Blend
Your offers made, accepted and declined. Your attrition. Weighted by how much evidence there actually is, not by preference.
STEP 05
Publish
Sources with retrieval dates, adjustments applied, assumptions written down, and an explicit list of what was not assessed.

Step 04, in plain terms

0 half all 10 30 60 120 offers and exits you can give us
  • Five Your data is an anecdote. The public figures do nearly all of the work.
  • Thirty Equal footing. Your evidence and the published statistics carry the same weight.
  • Sixty Your data decides. The public anchor becomes a check on it.
  • A hundred The market you actually compete in is now visible, and it is rarely the market the averages describe.

This is what keeps the work honest in both directions. It stops six data points being treated as truth, and it stops sixty being ignored because a published table felt more official. If your sample is thin we say so, and the structure is marked provisional.

Latest updates

What just changed in the talent landscape.

Regulation, official statistics, survey providers, labour markets and geopolitics, filtered down to the things that actually change a reward decision. Every entry carries its date and its source, so you can check it instead of taking our word for it.

Reviewed 2 August 2026 · covering 1 May to 2 August 2026
Regulation 31 Jul 2026 EU · Slovakia

Slovakia's deadline for objective pay structures has already passed

Act 76/2026 Z. z. on equal pay took effect on 7 June 2026. The Slovak National Labour Inspectorate states that employers had to have a pay structure built on objective criteria in place by 31 July 2026, must give pay or a pay range in job advertisements, and may not ask candidates about their previous pay. Where an unjustified gap of at least 5 percent shows up in a category of worker, a joint pay assessment follows. The first pay report is due 7 June 2027 from employers with at least 150 employees.

Why it mattersSlovakia turned pay transparency into an immediate job evaluation and range building exercise seven weeks after entry into force, not a 2027 reporting task. Any Slovak entity without an objective structure is already outside the law, and the 5 percent threshold is what sizes the remediation budget.

Source: Národný inšpektorát práce, Slovak National Labour Inspectorate

Economy 31 Jul 2026 US

US employment costs are growing 3.4 percent, at or above what employers plan to pay

The Employment Cost Index for the June 2026 quarter, released 31 July, puts civilian compensation up 3.4 percent over the year, wages and salaries 3.2 percent and benefits 3.8 percent. Private industry compensation rose 3.3 percent, wages 3.1 percent, benefits again 3.8 percent. Headline CPI over the same period ran about 3.5 percent, with core at 2.6 percent.

Why it mattersThis is the government measured, mix adjusted cost of employing people, and it sits at or above the 2027 US merit budgets employers are currently projecting. A 3.5 percent pool is a real terms hold rather than a raise, and anyone briefing it internally as a raise will lose credibility. The pressure is in benefits at 3.8 percent, not in base pay at 3.2 percent, and core inflation at 2.6 percent is the defensible range movement assumption while headline at 3.5 percent is what staff actually feel.

Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Cost Index. Figures taken from the BLS public API, series CIU1010000000000A and CUUR0000SA0.

Economy 31 Jul 2026 EU · euro area

Euro area wages are locked near 2.5 percent while inflation runs 2.9 percent

The ECB wage tracker, published 29 July and covering active collective agreements in nine euro area countries, shows negotiated wage growth of 2.3 percent for 2026 on the headline smoothed measure, 2.6 percent unsmoothed, and 2.7 percent for the first quarter of 2027. Two days later Eurostat's flash estimate put euro area inflation at 2.9 percent for July, with services at 3.3 percent and core at 2.5 percent.

Why it mattersCollective agreements are the floor and in practice the ceiling for most European pay budgets, and at 2.3 to 2.7 percent against 2.9 percent inflation, negotiated real wages are falling. That is the classic setup for harder union claims at the next round, and it should be priced into 2027 cost forecasts now. Any euro area budget still built on a 2 percent inflation assumption is close to a point short. Services inflation at 3.3 percent also hits agency and outsourced labour, which sits outside the merit model but inside the total workforce cost line.

Sources: European Central Bank wage tracker and Eurostat flash estimate

Regulation 29 Jul 2026 US · Maine

Maine now requires pay ranges in postings from ten employees upward

Public Law chapter 771, approved 24 April 2026, adds section 622-A to title 26 of the Maine Revised Statutes. Employers with ten or more employees must state the prospective pay range in every job posting, or state that pay is solely commission based. Every employer, regardless of size, must keep a record of each employee's positions and pay history for the whole of employment and for three years after it ends. The act carries no emergency clause, so it takes effect on 29 July 2026 with the other non emergency laws of the session.

Why it mattersA ten employee threshold pulls small sites into range publication, and because an employee can request the range for their own current position, internal ranges have to be defensible rather than just advertised ones. The three year record duty quietly builds the evidence file that any future equal pay claim would open with.

Source: Maine State Legislature, chaptered text of LD 54. The effective date is not in the chaptered text and is the session default, confirmed separately.

Technology 27 Jul 2026 EU

High risk AI rules for hiring and pay decisions are deferred to December 2027

Regulation (EU) 2026/1744, the Digital Omnibus on AI, was published in the Official Journal on 24 July 2026 and entered into force on 27 July. It moves full compliance for standalone high risk systems listed in Annex III of the AI Act from 2 August 2026 to 2 December 2027, and for high risk systems embedded in regulated products to 2 August 2028. Annex III expressly covers recruitment and selection, targeted job advertising, application filtering, candidate evaluation, and decisions on promotion, termination, task allocation and monitoring. Prohibited practices, AI literacy duties and the Article 50 transparency obligations were unaffected and still began on 2 August 2026.

Why it mattersThe high risk regime was due to bite on 2 August 2026. Anyone who built a remediation plan around that date has sixteen months of slack and a budget to redirect, most usefully into the job and role data quality that pay transparency compliance needs anyway. Anyone who assumed the deferral was still only a proposal is wrong, because it is in force. Note also that a deployer who materially modifies a system can be requalified as a provider, which pulls the full obligations back in.

Sources: Gibson Dunn and GamingTechLaw. Primary text: Regulation (EU) 2026/1744, OJ 24 July 2026, amending Regulation (EU) 2024/1689.

Labour market 22 Jul 2026 UK

UK public sector pay is growing almost twice as fast as private sector pay

ONS Average Weekly Earnings for March to May 2026, published 21 July, show regular pay up 3.4 percent across the whole economy but 2.9 percent in the private sector against 5.5 percent in the public sector. On settlements, Brightmine put the median award at 3.3 percent for the quarter to June, with 45.7 percent of matched settlements lower than the same employer gave in 2025, while Incomes Data Research put the median at 3.5 percent for the quarter to April, with the share of awards at 4 percent or more rising to 33 percent after the National Living Wage went to £12.71.

Why it mattersA 2.6 point gap between public and private regular pay inverts the usual benchmarking assumption: this year you lose people to the NHS and local government rather than to your competitors. The two settlement providers disagree by 0.2 points on overlapping periods, so the UK benchmark you cite has to be named in the board paper. And a flat median hides that nearly half of employers are already awarding less than last year, so budgeting to the median overstates the going rate. Awards clustering at 4 percent and above in retail, hospitality and care means bottom grade rates are catching the grade above them, which is a differential repair to fund rather than argue about.

Sources: ONS Average Weekly Earnings, Brightmine and Incomes Data Research

Geopolitics 17 Jul 2026 US

US student visas move to a hard four year clock from 15 September

A DHS final rule published on 17 July 2026 and effective 15 September 2026 replaces duration of status with a fixed admission period for F and J nonimmigrants, capped at the length of the programme and not exceeding four years, and 240 days for I nonimmigrants. DHS puts the annualised cost at 443 to 449 million dollars.

Why it mattersEmployers recruiting from the US student pipeline now have to fund extension of stay filings and legal support part way through a programme, and build a fixed four year clock into the sequence from graduation through practical training to sponsorship. Early career offer timing and the 2027 immigration budget both have to be set before 15 September, and early career retention risk rises for anyone whose clock runs out mid programme.

Source: US Federal Register, DHS final rule 2026-14439

Survey and data 15 Jul 2026 Global

Three providers, three different answers on 2027 pay budgets

On the same day, WTW projected average 2027 US salary increase budgets of 3.4 percent against a 3.5 percent actual for 2026, from 34,024 responses across 156 countries, while WorldatWork projected a mean of 3.6 percent, level with 2026, from 1,799 organisations. Korn Ferry, publishing on 30 July across 5,512 organisations, reported no change or a slight decrease for most major markets but did not publish figures on its public page. Separately, Mercer's April survey of 756 employers found 2026 merit actually paid 3.1 percent against 3.2 percent projected, while employers planned salary structure movement of only 2.6 percent.

Why it mattersThe 2027 number you take to a board depends on which provider you cite, and 0.2 points on a large payroll is a real budget line, so name the source rather than quoting "the market". WorldatWork found means above medians in 20 of 24 countries, which makes the median the safer planning input. The sharper story is the gap between merit at around 3.1 percent and structure movement at 2.6 percent: that pushes incumbents up through their ranges every year and builds compression against midpoints and against new hire rates, which resurfaces later as unbudgeted market adjustments. WTW's finding that 36 percent of employers are hiring into higher ranges and 32 percent are lifting starting ranges is the same problem seen from the other end.

Sources: WTW, WorldatWork, Korn Ferry and Mercer, reported by WorldatWork

Geopolitics 1 Jul 2026 Gulf · UAE

UAE Emiratisation shortfalls now carry a monthly cash contribution

MoHRE set 30 June 2026 as the deadline for private sector companies with 50 or more employees to meet first half 2026 Emiratisation targets, a 1 percent increase in skilled Emirati roles, being half of the 2 percent annual requirement. From 1 July the ministry said it would apply financial contributions of AED 10,000 a month, or AED 120,000 a year, for each Emirati position left unfilled.

Why it mattersThis converts a compliance target into a monthly cash line. A company ten roles short is carrying roughly AED 1.2 million a year, and the real question stops being whether to fund an Emirati pay premium and becomes whether that premium costs less than the contribution already being paid. Which jobs count turns on the skilled role definitions, so job classification decides the exposure.

Source: Gulf Today, reporting MoHRE. Reported before 1 July, so the contribution is as announced by the ministry.

Regulation 1 Jul 2026 US · Virginia

Virginia extends pay range disclosure to internal postings

Section 40.1-28.7:12 of the Code of Virginia, enacted by 2026 chapters 996 and 1063 and effective 1 July 2026, requires the wage, salary, or wage or salary range in each public and internal posting for every job, promotion, transfer or other employment opportunity, and bars seeking or relying on an applicant's pay history. Civil penalties run to 1,000 dollars for a first violation and 5,000 dollars for later ones. There is a fifteen business day window to correct a non compliant posting after written notice, which bars a private action for that posting, and a one year limitation period.

Why it mattersBecause promotions and transfers are covered, ranges have to exist and be defensible across the whole internal job ladder, not just on external vacancies. That is a job architecture programme rather than a change to advert copy, and the private right of action puts a direct cost on placeholder ranges.

Source: Code of Virginia. The code page does not display an effective date; 1 July 2026 is the ordinary Virginia date for regular session legislation and was confirmed against the state Department of Labor and Industry.

Regulation 8 May 2026 India

India's Labour Code rules land, and gratuity now starts at year one

On 8 May 2026 the Ministry of Labour and Employment notified the Central Rules under all four Labour Codes, covering wages, social security, occupational safety and industrial relations. Among the changes, gratuity applies to fixed term employees who complete one year of service, with any period above six months counted as an additional year.

Why it mattersGratuity provisioning moves from a five year cliff to accrual from year one for fixed term hires, which raises the true cost of fixed term headcount and changes how Indian entities model termination liability. The wage definition, overtime and appointment letter machinery in the rules means salary structures and payroll configuration have to be rebuilt rather than relabelled, and that work has to happen this year.

Source: KPMG Global Mobility Services Flash Alert 2026-127

This is a curated selection, not a complete record. An item appears here only when we have read the source ourselves, and where a figure came from a database rather than a press release we say so. Several developments were checked and left out because the source did not support the claim. Nothing here is legal advice; employment law, pay transparency duties and equal pay obligations differ by jurisdiction and require local counsel.

Want this as a monthly brief under your own name?
We produce this for firms who publish to their own clients. Your logo, your foreword, your commentary, our research and sourcing. Monthly or quarterly, as a document you send or a page you host, with no attribution to us. It is the same discipline as above: every claim dated, sourced and checkable.
Ask about the brief

Who we work with

Firms that publish, and firms that are scaling.

Executive search firms

You publish an annual salary guide because your market expects it. We produce it, under your name, so your researchers can stay on searches.

HR and reward consultancies

Capacity is the bottleneck, not demand. We are the production layer behind band structures and job architecture your clients never see us build.

HR technology vendors

The State of Compensation report your category expects. Built so a prospect can check it, which is what makes it travel.

Companies of 80 to 400

The size where pay decisions stop scaling one at a time and every offer quietly becomes a precedent.

What we hold ourselves to

Four words, and what each one costs us.

Values are cheap to write and expensive to keep. These are the four we are prepared to be measured against, defined so you can tell when we have failed one.

01
Speed
Days, not months. A pay structure inside a week, a research report inside three. The analysis is engineered rather than assembled by hand, which is why the clock is short and the price is not a proxy for effort.
02
Excellence
Every number traceable to a source and a date. If we cannot show you the working, we do not ship the number. And when something was not assessed, it is named on the page rather than left for you to assume.
03
Execution
Finished artefacts, not recommendations. You get the model, the deck and the page, ready to put your name on. Nobody has ever been helped by a slide that says consider developing a framework.
04
Capability
If it can be measured, it can be built. Tell us the question and we will build the thing that answers it, or tell you plainly that we cannot. Both are more useful than a maybe.

What happens next

You see it working before you owe us anything.

Said plainly, with dates, so it is a process rather than a promise. There is no discovery phase you pay for and no proposal document to sit through.

Day zero
You send three lines
A headcount, the functions involved and the countries. That is genuinely enough to begin. No call unless you want one, no form, no salary data.
Day two
You get a scope and a price
A fixed price per deliverable, agreed before anything starts. No hourly billing and no change orders. If we are not the right people for it, you find out here, and that costs you nothing.
Day five
The pilot is in your hands
One job family, one country, built properly and built free. Not a sample chapter or a mockup. A real piece of the actual deliverable, on your data or on the model, whichever route you chose.
Then you decide
Or you do not
If it is not what you wanted, you keep the pilot and we part cleanly. Nobody chases you. We would rather lose two days than talk somebody into work they did not need.
Why the pilot is bounded. One job family in one country is roughly two days of work, and we will do that for anyone who is serious. A whole architecture given away free would only mean charging somebody else for it. The scope is small so the offer can be real.

Straight answers

The questions people email us first.

What do you actually need from us to start?

To scope it, three lines: headcount, functions, countries. To build it, an extract with an employee reference, a grade or job title, a location and a base salary. Names are not needed and we would rather not have them. Offers made, accepted and declined, plus leavers with their exit dates, make the analysis considerably sharper, but they are not required.

A spreadsheet is fine. We do not connect to your HRIS and we do not want credentials for anything.

How long does it take?

A pay structure inside a week from the day the data lands. A white label research report or salary guide inside three. The pilot comes back within five days of your first email.

These are short because the analysis is engineered rather than assembled by hand. If something will take longer, you are told the date up front rather than discovering it later.

How do you price it?

A fixed price per deliverable, agreed before we start. No hourly billing, no day rates, no change orders and no discovery phase you pay for. You know the number and the date before anything begins.

We price the artefact, not the effort, which means an efficient method benefits you rather than costing us. Nothing is billed until the pilot has been seen.

Is a person doing this work, or is it generated?

A fair question to ask anyone in 2026, and the honest answer is both. Software does the arithmetic, the aging, the interpolation and the document build, which is exactly why the turnaround is days rather than months. The judgement is not automated: which occupational codes actually map to your roles, which comparator market you are really in, when a sample is too thin to carry a conclusion, and when a number is technically correct but would mislead the person reading it.

The reason you do not have to take that on faith is the method. Every figure ships with its source, its retrieval date and the adjustment applied, so you can reproduce any number in the deliverable yourself. Work that cannot survive being checked is not worth buying, whoever or whatever produced it.

Do you sign our NDA, or do we sign yours?

Yours. We sign your paper and invoice against it. We are a registered proprietorship and we contract in our own name.

If your legal team would rather nothing left the building at all, that is what the second route exists for. You send us nothing, we ship you the model, and there is no data to protect because we never receive any.

Who owns what you produce?

You do, outright, on payment. Including the models and the spreadsheets, not just the finished document. You can edit them, rebuild them next year without us, or hand them to another firm.

We keep no residual claim and we do not reuse your figures in anyone else's work. Nothing we build for you carries our name unless you ask it to.

What if our data is thin?

Then we say so on the page. Your own evidence is weighted by how much of it there actually is, so six data points do not get treated as truth and sixty do not get ignored because a published table looked more official.

Where the sample cannot carry a conclusion, the structure is marked provisional and the reason is written down. A confident number built on nothing is the most expensive thing in this field.

Where are you based, and where does our data sit?

We are a registered proprietorship operating from India, working across UK, EU, US, Gulf and Indian pay markets. Contracting and invoicing are in our own name.

Data you send stays on encrypted storage under our control, is never placed in a shared drive or a third party analytics tool, and is returned or destroyed on completion, your choice, confirmed in writing. If cross border transfer is the obstacle rather than a preference, take the model route instead and the question does not arise.

Get in touch

Tell us what you are trying to defend.

A headcount, a function and the countries involved is enough to begin. We will tell you before you commit whether we are the right people for it, and if we are not, we will say so.

The button opens your mail client with the three questions already in it. Or write to [email protected] however you like.