BULKHEAD: Experimenting With Salary Transparency

It's no secret that salary transparency isn't exactly commonplace in the games industry and with so many people being affected by recent industry downturns, it's become an increasingly hot topic.

CEO and co-founder of BULKHEAD, Joe Brammer, recently announced that they would be directly including salary brackets in one of their open roles to test out what impact it would have. We asked him a few questions about this decision and his thoughts on salary transparency.

Your studio previously experimented with a four-day work week. What made you decide that salary transparency was the next thing to trial?

I’ll be honest; as with our experiment with the four-day work week, our decision to trial salary transparency was driven purely by business considerations. We realized we were spending too much time sorting through candidates whose salary expectations were inflated from the middle of the pandemic boom. That salary inflation is now playing a part in the distressed industry we're seeing, and we needed to ensure that we’re attracting the right talent while maintaining our stability and growth. By being transparent about what we’re willing to pay for a role at this moment, we provide candidates with the freedom to decide if our offer meets their expectations, rather than risking any unwelcome surprises later on.

What kind of impact are you expecting, in terms of applicants and internal team dynamics?

We’re anticipating that being upfront about our salary bands will help us attract higher-quality applicants; those whose expectations align with our current market reality. It’s not just about recruitment; we’re also looking at it as a way to streamline our hiring process and set clear expectations from the start. Of course, there’s a balancing act internally. We recognize that some team members might feel they deserve a higher band, but given the volatility in the games job market across the UK, we see this as a necessary step to maintain alignment and stability. Ultimately, the goal is to improve transparency and reduce the friction that comes from misaligned salary expectations, even if it means facing some internal challenges along the way.

Some studios argue that listing salaries can lead to internal disputes or salary inflation. Do you think these concerns are valid?

They are and it will. It’s not really a debate, that absolutely has already happened a week in. It’s how those studios deal with it that matters. At this point we’re going to deal with those issues as we always have by being direct and tackling the issue head on. We review our salaries regularly and externally validate them, we’re comfortable with our bandings. The last few years have grossly unsettled the dynamics between seniorities and we need to get back to stabilizing that.

If this experiment proves successful, do you see BULKHEAD making salary transparency a permanent policy?

Absolutely, but ‘permanent policy’ makes it sound so formal. I don’t think it’s a big deal for us, we aren’t underpaying people and we have corrected issues where we felt people were overpaid and unbalancing our internal salary economy. Our policy across everything at Bulkhead is honesty and candour, call it transparency if you like but that’s all we’re doing here is just being true to our values and hoping it works. It’s less of a political statement and more of a pragmatic business move that makes sense to us.

What would you say to other studios that are hesitant to post salaries in their job ads?

To be honest, I wouldn’t really comment on it which is a bit unlike me. I think I’ve spent a lot of time during my career criticising how others run their businesses and gotten a lot of stick for it from various groups. We are Bulkhead and this is how we run our business, ignoring transparency and a willingness to be open. We try new things and we’re not afraid for them to fail, we’re adaptable by design, and I think this is just our next public thing we’re trying. 

Whatever your thoughts on salary transparency, it will be interesting to see the results of BULKHEAD's experiment and the potential impact it has for the recruitment team and the wider studio.