How to ask for a raise at work

When should you ask for a raise

Two calendars matter. The first is your employer’s: pay reviews, budget setting and headcount planning happen on fixed dates, and a request that lands after the numbers are locked gets a sympathetic no. Find out when those dates are, from your manager or from a colleague who has been through a cycle, and ask several weeks before rather than during.

The second is your own. The best moment follows something concrete: a project you carried, a system you fixed, a client who stayed, a quarter where you covered a vacancy. Recency is not manipulation, it is simply when the evidence is easiest to see.

There are also poor moments. A week when the team has lost a major account, the day after a hiring pause is announced, or the hour before your manager’s own difficult meeting will all produce the same answer regardless of your case. If the organisation is visibly under pressure, the conversation to have is about the criteria and the timing of a future increase.

One expectation to set now: MIT’s guidance on raises and salary is explicit that you should “Never go into a salary negotiation expecting an immediate answer.” Managers usually need approval, and a decision inside the meeting is the exception.

Build the case from your own work

The case is written before it is spoken. MIT’s advice is to “make a list of the value you bring to the company”, and then to “Make sure your daily duties match your job description.” That second sentence is the part most people skip, and it is often where the argument lives.

Pull up the job description you were hired against, or the advert if that is all you have. Go through it line by line and mark what you now do that is not on it: the reporting you took over, the new starter you train, the vendor you manage, the on-call rota you joined, the tool you own. A role that has grown by a third since you joined is a straightforward case, and it is one your manager can take upwards without inventing a justification.

Then attach outcomes. For each major piece of work in the last six to twelve months, write one line with the result in it: what changed, by how much, and when. Numbers you can source from your own systems beat adjectives. If you do not track anything, start now and ask in two months with a record rather than next week without one.

Keep the whole thing to one page. You are not presenting it; you are using it so that nothing important goes missing when you are nervous, and so you can leave a copy if your manager asks for one.

Find out what the role pays elsewhere

An internal argument about fairness is weaker than an external one about market rate, because your manager can verify the second. MIT frames the first step as comparison: “The first step to justifying your request for higher pay is to compare it to what other people…are making”, and suggests you “compare your job duties to job descriptions and salaries from other companies” rather than relying on titles, which vary wildly between employers.

For a public anchor, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook gives a median pay figure for each occupation and lets you filter occupations by pay band. Use it to establish the shape of the market, then adjust for your location, sector and level, since the published median covers an entire occupation nationally rather than your job in your city.

Current job adverts for your role are the sharpest evidence available, especially where a band is published. If equivalent roles are advertised above what you earn, that is a fact about the market and not a complaint about your employer, which is exactly the tone you want.

Settle on one figure before the meeting, with a floor you keep to yourself. Asking for a specific number tells your manager what to seek approval for. Asking vaguely for “more” leaves them to guess, and the guess will be small.

Asking: the meeting and what to say

Book a dedicated conversation rather than bolting the subject onto a weekly check-in. A short, neutral message is enough, and giving the topic in advance avoids the ambush your manager will otherwise feel.

Subject: Quick meeting about my role and pay

Hi [Name],

Could we find 30 minutes in the next week or two? I would like to talk about how my role has developed over the past year and about my salary.

Happy to send over a short summary beforehand if that is useful.

Thanks,

[Your name]

Open the meeting with the purpose, not with small talk that drifts. Say what you have taken on, give two or three results in a sentence each, say the figure, and then stop talking. The silence that follows belongs to your manager.

Over the last year I have taken on [responsibility] and [responsibility], which were not part of the role I was hired into. In that time [result] and [result].

Looking at what comparable roles pay in [city], I would like my salary reviewed to [figure]. I wanted to raise it with you directly before the budget cycle.

Stay collaborative when the answer comes back. MIT’s advice for the close is to “Make it clear you’re willing to go through the proper channels and discuss next steps”, which is the opposite of an ultimatum and makes it easy for your manager to be your advocate rather than your obstacle.

If the answer is no or not yet

A no usually means not now, not never, and the value of the meeting is what you agree next. Ask what would have to be true for the answer to change, who else is involved in the decision, and when the next realistic opportunity is. Write down what you hear and send a short summary afterwards so that the criteria exist in writing.

Money is not the only variable. MIT suggests seeing whether “you can negotiate for other benefits or perks”, giving examples such as the “PTO accrual rate” and “401(k)” arrangements, and in many organisations a title change, a training budget, a conference, a shift pattern or an extra day of remote work can be approved when base pay cannot.

It is also the right moment for the wider conversation. The same guidance recommends you “discuss your long-term plans both inside and outside the company”, which gives your manager the chance to tell you honestly whether the trajectory you want exists where you are. That answer is worth more than the raise.

If nothing moves and nothing is promised, you have information. Some people conclude that the market pays better, and the comparison you already did becomes the start of a job search. If you take that route, the offer stage works differently from an internal ask: see salary negotiation for the counter offer mechanics, and salary expectations for the figure you give early in a process.

Why an internal ask is not an offer negotiation

Three differences are worth holding in mind. Your manager already knows your work, so claims are checkable and exaggeration is fatal. Your manager also rarely controls the budget alone, so you are asking them to argue on your behalf to someone you may never meet. And you will still be here on Monday, which rules out leverage tactics that only work when you can walk away.

That is why the approach is quieter. One ask, an evidenced case, a specific figure, a date for the answer, and no threats. Using an external offer as a lever occasionally works and often damages trust, because it recasts you as someone who had to be outbid.

If what you actually want is a bigger job rather than a better rate for the same one, the route is usually an internal application and a formal process, not a pay conversation: internal promotion interviews covers that, and greatest achievement is useful for assembling the evidence either way.