Straight answer: negotiating a high starting salary comes down to three things: knowing the real number before you speak, never being the first to name a figure if you can help it, and asking for 10 to 20 percent above their opening offer without apologising for it. Most people lose the negotiation before it starts because they treat the first offer as fixed rather than as an opening position designed to be moved.
The first number sets your ceiling for years, not just for now
Here’s the bit nobody says loudly enough. Your starting salary is not just this year’s number. It’s the base every future rise, bonus percentage, and pension contribution gets calculated from. If you take £38,000 instead of pushing for £43,000, and your employer gives everyone a 4 percent rise each year, you’re not £5,000 behind. You’re compounding £5,000 behind, every year, for as long as you stay. I’ve watched people spend three years fighting for a promotion that would have needed one confident conversation at the offer stage instead.
That’s why the starting salary conversation matters more than almost any other one you’ll have at work, including the one you’ll eventually have about a promotion. If you want the fuller picture of what happens once you’re inside the company, my piece on negotiating a salary increase with a promotion covers the next stage. But this one, the very first number, is the one worth getting right.
Do the research before you say a single word about money
You cannot negotiate what you don’t know. I don’t mean a vague sense that “London pays more.” I mean an actual range, from at least three sources, for the exact job title, seniority level, and region.
Use Glassdoor, LinkedIn Salary, Payscale, and if the company is large enough, sites like Levels.fyi for tech roles. Cross-reference with a recruiter in that sector, most will tell you the real range over a fifteen minute call because it helps them place you elsewhere later. Then check the Office for National Statistics annual earnings data for the UK if you want a sanity check on the broader picture, it’s public, it’s free, and it’s more reliable than anything you’ll find on a forum.
I’ve written a full step by step version of this research process, because it changes the outcome, in how to research salary ranges before a negotiation. Do that homework before you touch anything else in this post. Everything downstream depends on it.
A real example: how Priya turned £42,000 into £51,000
A woman I mentored a few years back, I’ll call her Priya since she’d rather not be named, was offered a marketing manager role at a mid-sized fintech in Manchester. The offer was £42,000. She’d been on £36,000 in her previous job and was thrilled, understandably, because it felt like a big jump.
I asked her one question: what does that role pay elsewhere, for someone with your exact experience? She hadn’t checked. We spent forty minutes on LinkedIn Salary and Glassdoor and found the real range for that title, that region, and that company size was £45,000 to £54,000. Her offer sat right at the bottom.
She emailed back the next morning, thanked them warmly, said she was excited about the role, and said that based on her research into comparable roles in the sector, she’d been expecting something closer to £52,000, and asked if there was flexibility. No drama, no ultimatum. They came back at £49,000 within a day. She pushed once more, citing a second data point, and landed at £51,000. That’s £9,000 a year, from one email, sent after forty minutes of research she’d never bothered doing before.
The company didn’t blink. They had budget for it. They just weren’t going to hand it over unless someone asked.
Never give your number first, if you can avoid it
Every recruiter, every hiring manager, every “what are your salary expectations” question at the start of a process is designed to get your number before they’ve shown you theirs. Whoever names a figure first usually loses ground, because they’ve anchored the conversation lower than the employer might have been willing to pay.
If pushed, deflect politely: “I’d like to understand the full scope of the role and the budget for it before discussing a number, but I’m confident we can find something that works for both of us.” If they insist, give a wide range based on your research, not a single figure, and put the number you want near the top of that range, not the middle.
The exact phrasing matters more than people admit, and I’ve laid out word for word scripts for the most common sticking points in what to say when negotiating your salary. Read it before your next call. It removes the panic of not knowing what to say when the pressure is on and you’ve got three seconds to answer.
The step-by-step version, if you like structure
- Step 1: research the real range from three sources, minimum, before any conversation about money starts.
- Step 2: avoid naming a figure first. If forced, give a range with your target near the top.
- Step 3: when the offer lands, don’t accept or reject it in the moment. Say thank you, say you’re excited, and ask for 24 to 48 hours to review.
- Step 4: come back with a number 10 to 20 percent above their offer, backed by one or two specific data points from your research.
- Step 5: if they push back, ask what flexibility exists elsewhere: signing bonus, extra holiday, remote working days, an early salary review at six months instead of twelve.
- Step 6: get the final number in writing before you resign from anything else. Verbal agreements have a habit of shrinking between the phone call and the contract.
If you’d rather do this over email than on a call, which I’d recommend for the counter-offer stage because it gives you time to word things carefully, I’ve written out full templates in how to write a salary negotiation email that gets a positive response. Steal the structure, adjust the numbers, send it.
The part nobody wants to admit out loud
Here’s the uncomfortable bit. Negotiating power isn’t distributed fairly, and pretending otherwise doesn’t help you. If you’re a junior candidate with three other people just as qualified queuing behind you, your use is thinner than a senior candidate with a niche skill set and two competing offers on the table. Confidence and scripts help everyone, but they don’t erase the gap between someone the company has to have and someone the company would merely like to have.
What that means practically is this: the more replaceable you look on paper, the more your negotiation has to lean on preparation and timing rather than boldness alone, because boldness without use can read as naive rather than confident. If you’re early in your career, your strongest move often isn’t pushing hard on the starting number, it’s negotiating a formal six month review with a defined target instead, then walking in prepared to make the case for a jump once you’ve proven yourself. It’s a less satisfying answer than “just ask for more,” but it’s the honest one, and it’s why I always tell people to check their actual use before deciding how hard to push.
What to do before you’ve even accepted the offer
Timing matters as much as wording. The best moment to negotiate is after you have a formal written offer and before you’ve signed anything or resigned from your current role. Once you’ve handed in your notice, your use drops sharply, because the company knows you’re now less likely to walk away over a few thousand pounds.
I go into this timing question in how to approach negotiating your salary before accepting a job offer, including what to do if they give you a deadline that feels artificially tight, which happens more often than it should and is usually a pressure tactic rather than a real constraint.
What if they say no
Sometimes the answer really is no. Budgets are fixed in some organisations, particularly the public sector and larger corporates with strict pay bands. If that’s the case, don’t walk away from the whole negotiation, shift it. Ask about a signing bonus, a title bump that helps your next move, an earlier performance review, extra annual leave, or a remote working arrangement that saves you real money in commuting and childcare.
And if none of that moves either, take the job on the number offered if it’s still a genuine improvement, and start building your case for the raise you’ll ask for at month six. That conversation, when it comes, works very differently to this one, and I’ve written a full breakdown of how to ask for a salary increase from your employer once you’re already inside the building and have results to point to.
Frequently asked questions
How much more should I ask for than the initial offer?
Ask for 10 to 20 percent above their opening figure, backed by at least one specific piece of salary data for your exact role and region. Going higher than 20 percent without strong justification, like a competing offer, tends to slow the process down rather than speed it up.
Is it ever okay to give my number first?
Yes, if you know the market rate well and want to anchor high deliberately, but give a range rather than a single figure, with your real target sitting near the top of it, not in the middle.
Should I mention a competing offer if I have one?
Yes, always. A genuine competing offer is the single strongest piece of use in any starting salary negotiation, and most employers will move meaningfully once they know they might lose you to someone else.
What if the recruiter says the salary is fixed and non-negotiable?
Treat that as an opening line, not a fact, unless it’s a public sector role with a published pay band. Even then, ask about non-salary items like signing bonuses, holiday, or an earlier review date, since those are often more flexible than the base figure itself.
