Ask most HR leaders where the biggest pay gap in their function sits and they point outward, to the distance between HR and the commercial side. Our latest benchmarks say they’re looking the wrong way. The widest pay gap in HR is now inside HR.
We surveyed specialists across nine Centres of Expertise for our 2026 HR Centres of Expertise Report. One finding stood out. Two people at the same level can sit a full tier apart on pay, purely because of the specialism they chose. Where you specialise now shapes your earning power as much as how senior you are.
Access the report here: HR Centres of Expertise Report
What the benchmarks reveal
At the top, the strategic specialisms pull away. 57% of HR Transformation specialists earn over £80k, and half of those in Reward and OD do the same. Individual Reward and Transformation specialists reach the £150–200k band, with OD extending to £120–150k. That £150–200k figure is where our data stops, not where the market does. The most senior Reward and Transformation leaders sit well beyond it.
What makes the spread so wide is the bottom. The operational specialisms cluster in the £40–60k band: 85% of Talent Acquisition specialists, 76% in Employee Relations, 61% in HR Operations. So the pay spread inside HR is now wider than the gap between many HR functions and their commercial counterparts.
The strategic specialisms drew smaller samples, so treat the exact figures as indicative. But the direction holds across our data and the wider market, and it isn’t subtle.
The retention risk you’re probably not pricing in
Here’s the part that should worry anyone building a team. The operational functions aren’t just the lowest paid. They’re also the most pay-sensitive and the most mobile. When we asked what would make people move, pay topped the list for exactly these functions: 73% in HR Operations, 76% in Talent Acquisition, 86% in Employee Relations.
So you’ve got a group sitting at the bottom of the pay band, in the part of the market where a competing offer is easiest to make, telling you plainly that pay is what would move them. That’s a flight risk hiding inside healthy engagement numbers: 62% of specialists feel confident about progressing their career, yet 73% would move for better pay. Confidence and pay satisfaction have come apart, and that gap won’t show up in your engagement survey.
It runs deeper than base pay
The rest of the reward structure follows the same fault line. Bonus and long-term incentives track the pay divide closely. Employee Relations has the highest no-bonus rate of any Centre of Expertise, and across the survey around four in five specialists receive no long-term incentive at all. Benefits lean the same way, with ER again reporting the highest “no benefits” rate.
The wider market says the same. CIPD’s February 2026 reward survey found flexible working is rated a key driver by three-quarters of employers who set benefit objectives, yet only 40% actually provide it, and benefits are usually aimed at retention without ever being measured against it. The lever most likely to hold an operational specialist is often the one that never makes it onto the table.
ONS figures show regular pay grew 3.4% in the year to spring 2026, barely 0.1% once you adjust for inflation. When the annual rise only just beats inflation, a competitive package is the price of entry, not a differentiator. Where someone sits in the structure now matters more than the size of their yearly bump.
What to do about it
None of this is expensive.
Compare pay inside HR, not just against the outside market. Two people on the same level aren’t always worth the same salary. A Reward Director and an ER lead are paid very differently across the market, so putting them in the same internal band underpays one of them, usually the one who’s hardest to replace. Underpay them long enough and you lose them.
Give people a way to move sideways. For someone in an operational team, switching into a strategic specialism can raise their pay more than the next promotion would. If they can’t make that move with you, they’ll make it with someone else.
Look at where your Director-level pay lands. The strategic specialisms show the clearest routes past £100k at Director level; the operational ones climb toward six figures from a much lower base. Two people who started level can end a tier apart by the time they run a function. If your Director bands don’t reflect that, you’ll lose the harder role to replace.
Offer each team what actually matters to them. Operational teams are moved mainly by pay. Strategic specialists care more about culture, good leadership and a real say in strategy. Treat the whole function the same way and you’ll overpay some people and still lose others.
Where this leaves you
Where someone specialises is now a long-term pay and retention decision. The functions doing some of the most operationally complex work are often the most exposed, and this gap is widening, not closing.
If you’re benchmarking pay across your HR team, designing a Centre of Expertise, or trying to keep specialists you can’t afford to lose, that’s a conversation we have most weeks. Read the full HR Centres of Expertise Report here, or get in touch with James Cumming at re:find.