How much do you earn? That rarely asked question is at the heart of a website that threatens to break the British taboo over salary.

The payments to thousands of employees in leading companies are already on display at Glassdoor.com, which was set up in the United States two months ago. The founders of the site intend to add the salaries of British workers next week.

All the salary entries and company reviews written by current and former employees are anonymous, but they are vetted for accuracy. The key to the site’s growth is that to view the details users have to submit their own salary or review.

In its first two months the site has published more than 50,000 company reviews and salary reports from 80 countries. More than a thousand British-based employers have at least one review, but there are no British salaries because the site has not been configured to display these in pounds. Robert Hohman, co-founder and chief executive, told The Times that several thousand salary entries for British workers will be added to the site soon, most likely next week.

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The BBC has eight company reviews on the site, ranging from “the biggest, the brightest and the best”, submitted by an editor, to “the senior management are utterly clueless”, from a BBC technician. IBM has 358 reviews from around the world, including 22 from Britain. The NHS has three reviews and London Underground has one, from a site engineer who says that the company is a “good place to hide if you want an easy life”.

Mr Hohman said that the Califor-nia-based site was checked rigorously for bogus entries. “We take data integrity very seriously,” he said.

All entries are checked by computer for anomalies so that, for instance, if a salary is unusually high or low, it is flagged. All users are required to give a verifiable e-mail address and suspect entries are challenged.

“We have technical and procedural mechanisms that all postings go through. More than 10 per cent of postings are not allowed,” Mr Hohman said.

Multiple entries from any one computer are barred. The site emphasises constructive criticism - libellous statements are not allowed - and individuals below the very top tier of executives cannot be named in the company reviews.

Mr Hohman is evangelical about openness. “People don’t talk enough about how they can be more valuable. This should help them. Knowledge is power,” he said.

The site has built up a big following, particularly in the technology, banking, finance and consulting sectors. When it went live in June after an initial testing phase, it received 10,000 postings in five hours.

The site makes money from employment advertising and has tried to ease the concerns of employers by recruiting senior executives as advisers. Some chief executives come in for heavy criticism. “There is an initial level of discomfort for chief executives, but most see this as inevitable,” Mr Hohman said.

The big numbers

Mark Thompson, the BBC Director-General, was paid £816,000 in 2007, including expenses and pension contribution – twice as much as his predecessor Greg Dyke in 2003

Bart Becht, the chief executive of Reckitt Benckiser, receives a salary of £22 million. He is famed for his attention to detail, which extends to testing his company’s Cillit Bang and Mr Muscle products personally

Arun Sarin, the chief executive of Vodafone, received a salary of £1.3million this year. When he steps down this year he will be given about £25 million in payouts

Bob Diamond, the American president of Barclays, made £21million last year, despite more than £1.6 billion in sub-prime-related writedowns

Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP, the marketing and advertising empire, enjoyed a rise from £832,000 to just over £1million this year

Adam Crozier received a salary of £629,000 salary this year, as well as more than £500,000 bonuses and benefits as head of Royal Mail

David Higgins, chief executive of the Olympic Delivery Authority, received a salary of £373,000

John Connolly, the global chairman of Deloitte, was paid £5.7 million last year, a rise of £1 million

Crispin Odey, of the hedge-fund Odey Asset Management, awarded himself a pay rise of £22.6 million

Source: Times archive; Agencies

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