united-kingdom employment canada academia salary
May a UK academic employer ask the latest pay slip of my current Canadian job?
<p>As a postdoc in a Canadian institution, I have been offered a lecturer position in UK. In the offer email I have received, one clause reads as follows:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Please could you provide evidence of your current salary by sending me
your most recent pay slip.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Is it legally OK to ask this (particularly considering the fact that the job I have been offered is not in the same level of my current job)? Is there any law that supports my potential refusal to provide the desired pay slip?</p>

<p>They can ask, but there is nothing in law - that I can find - which obligates an answer. (There may be some exceptions that require a previous employer to <a href="https://www.gov.uk/work-reference" rel="nofollow noreferrer">provide a reference</a> which might include this detail, but that does not appear relevant here.)</p>
<p>As an aside, there is an ongoing <em>#EndSalaryHistory</em> campaign by the <a href="https://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/news/fawcett-society-calls-on-employers-to-stop-asking-salary-history" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Fawcett Society</a> which is focused on equal pay and sexual equality in the workplace, and they are calling on employers to:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>stop asking salary history questions...</p>
</blockquote>
