The Trades Union Congress (TUC) and Incomes Data Services (IDS) have launched a new tool to check salaries.

The organisations say that many workers are in the dark about pay expectations. The online service www.paywizard.org aims to provide wage transparency.

PayWizard claims that candidates can find out what they can earn in other careers, benchmark salaries and uncover regional differences.

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: ‘This is an exciting and innovative project. For too many people pay has been surrounded in secrecy, making the perfect environment for inequality and discrimination to flourish undetected. This website shines a light on the issue. It will help employees and unions uncover some of the unfair differences in pay that we know exist, and help people find out what they are really worth.’

Alastair Hatchett, Head of Pay Services at IDS said that improved access to better information enables job hoppers to make good decisions.