Straight answer: preparing for a salary negotiation conversation means knowing your number before you know your speech, writing down your employer's likely objections and your response to each one, practising out loud until it stops feeling awkward, and deciding in advance what you'll do if the answer is no. Most people prepare the ask. Almost nobody prepares for what happens after they've made it, and that's where the money gets left on the table.
Start with the number, not the words
I've sat across from a lot of people who wanted a raise and had a lovely, heartfelt story about why they deserved one, and no figure attached to it. That's backwards. Your manager doesn't need to hear that you've worked hard. They need a number they can take to finance, HR, or their own boss and defend.
Before you write a single sentence of what you're going to say, work out three figures: your current pay, the market rate for your role and level, and the number you're going to ask for (which should sit slightly above what you'd be happy with, because most offers land somewhere below the ask). If you skip this step, everything else you prepare is just decoration. There's a proper way to do this research, not a quick Google and a screenshot from Glassdoor, and I've laid out the full process in how to research salary ranges before a negotiation, step by step. Do that part first. Everything else in this post assumes you have.
Write down what you'll say when they push back
Here's the bit people skip: they rehearse the opening line and stop. "I'd like to discuss my salary" is the easy part. The hard part is what comes ten seconds later, when your manager says "budgets are tight this year" or "let's revisit this at your next review" or "what makes you think you're worth that."
Write down the three most likely objections you'll hear and script a calm, specific response to each. Not a rebuttal, a response. For "budgets are tight," your line might be: "I understand budgets are a real constraint, so I'd like to understand what would need to be true for this to happen, whether that's this quarter or next." For "let's revisit at review time," it's: "I'd rather have that conversation now, while the impact I'm describing is fresh, and I'm happy to put it in writing so it's on record for the review."
I once coached a woman, I'll call her Priya, who was two years into a marketing manager role, had grown a small team's output by 40 percent, and asked for an 8 percent increase. Her boss said "not this quarter." Priya froze. She'd prepared the ask beautifully and nothing for the no. She said "okay, no worries" (her words, not something I'd advise) and the conversation ended there, for another year. Six months later, doing this, she scripted her fallback line in advance: "I hear that. Can we agree a date to revisit, and can I get that in writing?" Same boss, same excuse, different outcome. She had a written commitment to revisit in eight weeks, and she got the raise then. The difference wasn't confidence. It was that she'd written the second half of the conversation down before she walked in.
The uncomfortable bit nobody tells you
Here's the part most advice avoids: the number your manager offers you first is very rarely the ceiling, and it's almost never the number that's been approved for the role. Companies build negotiating room into offers and into raise pools the same way you'd build room into a first offer on a house. If you accept the first figure without a counter, you're not being gracious, you're leaving money that was already set aside for someone to negotiate for.
This isn't cynical, it's just how budgeting works in most organisations with more than about 20 people. HR sets a range. Your manager is given a figure with wiggle room built in, sometimes 5 to 10 percent above the number they open with. Nobody says this out loud in the room, but it's true often enough that it should change how you prepare. Assume there's room, ask for it politely, and don't apologise for asking twice.
Practice out loud, not in your head
Rehearsing a negotiation silently, in the shower or on the train, feels like preparation and mostly isn't. Your brain is very good at skipping the awkward pauses when it's just thinking through a script. Say the actual sentences out loud, to a mirror, a voice memo, or better, to a friend who'll play the difficult boss.
I still do this before big client pricing conversations, and I've been doing this professionally for over fifteen years. The number one thing that changes when you say it out loud is you find the sentence that makes you cringe, and that's usually the one that needed fixing. If a line sounds stiff or overly formal when spoken, it'll sound worse in the room.
A simple structure that works out loud:
- State the ask clearly, with the number, in the first two sentences. Don't bury it.
- Back it with two or three specific, measurable things you've done (numbers beat adjectives every time)
- Stop talking. Let there be silence. Whoever fills the silence first often gives something away, and it's usually not you if you've practised staying quiet.
If this feels unfamiliar territory entirely, the groundwork on tone and body language is worth reading before you get to the scripting stage: how to negotiate your salary with confidence covers the psychological side I don't have room for here.
Know your walk-away point before you sit down
You need a number below which you'd rather stay put, look elsewhere, or wait six months, than accept. Decide this before the meeting, not during it. In the room, under a bit of pressure and with someone being pleasant to you across a desk, your walk-away point will drift downward without you noticing. That's not weakness, it's just what happens to people under mild social pressure, so build the guardrail in advance rather than trusting yourself to hold the line live.
Write the number down. Literally, on paper or in your notes app, the night before. If the offer comes in below it, your prepared response is simple and doesn't need improvising: "Thank you, I need to think this through and I'll come back to you by [specific day]." Never accept or reject on the spot if the number disappoints you. Sleeping on it isn't a delay tactic, it's how you avoid saying yes to something you'll resent in three months.
Timing changes what's possible
When you have this conversation matters almost as much as how you have it. Straight after a big win, right after a positive review, or right when the annual budget is being set (usually a few months before the new financial year) are your strongest windows. The worst time is right after a bad quarter for the business, or when your manager themselves is under pressure from above, which you can often tell from how distracted they've seemed in the last few one-to-ones.
If you're negotiating a raise inside a promotion, the timing and the script both shift, because you're really having two conversations at once (the new role, and the new pay for it), and treating them as one conversation is where people undersell themselves. I've written the full breakdown here: how to negotiate a salary increase with a promotion. If you're not attached to a promotion and simply asking for more in your current role, the approach and the wording you'd use are different again, covered in how to ask for a salary increase from your employer.
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Bring proof, not adjectives
"I've worked really hard" convinces nobody. "I closed 14 new accounts this quarter against a target of 9, worth roughly 180,000 pounds in new revenue" convinces almost anyone with a budget to defend. Before the meeting, write out three to five bullet points of specific, numbered outcomes from the last six to twelve months. If your role doesn't produce numbers this cleanly (many don't), translate the impact into time saved, problems avoided, or people who depended on your work. "I onboarded and trained the two new starters, which meant the team didn't lose productivity during a 25 percent headcount increase" is still specific, even without a pound sign attached.
Print this list, or have it open on your laptop. Don't rely on memory in the moment. Nerves erase detail faster than you'd expect, and vague claims under pressure sound exactly like the excuses you're trying to avoid making.
Decide who you're negotiating with, and who decides
Your direct manager is often not the person who sets your pay. They're frequently a messenger with a limited mandate, relaying what HR or finance has already agreed. This matters for preparation because it changes what "no" means. A no from your manager might just mean "no, not at the figure and framing I can currently approve," not "no, permanently, from the organisation." Ask, plainly, in the meeting: "Is this a decision you can make directly, or does it need sign-off elsewhere?" It's a fair question and it tells you whether you're negotiating with the decision-maker or with someone who'll need ammunition to take upstairs on your behalf, which changes what you should hand them at the end of the meeting (a one-page written summary of your ask and your evidence helps enormously here).
The tactics that move the number
A lot of "negotiation tactics" content online is padding. A few things that move outcomes: anchoring with a specific number rather than a round one (asking for 3 percent above a round figure signals you've done real calculation, not just picked a nice number), having a second lever ready if base salary is capped (extra holiday, a signing or retention bonus, a earlier review date, remote or flexible working, professional development budget), and never being the first to name a lower fallback number out loud, even under pressure. I've gone deeper into the specific phrasing and sequencing that works in what negotiation tactics work best when asking for a pay rise, worth reading the night before your meeting, not weeks before, so it's fresh.
What if you're already employed and just want more
Negotiating a raise inside a job you already have is a different psychological game to negotiating a new offer, because you're not walking away from anything if it goes badly, which is both your safety net and your weakness. There's no external offer forcing the pace, so the pressure has to come from your evidence and your timing instead. If this is your situation specifically, rather than a new job offer, the approach that works is laid out in how do you negotiate a raise when you already have a job, and it's worth the fifteen minutes before you book the meeting.
The night before
The last piece of preparation is the smallest and gets skipped most often: sleep, and one final read of your notes, not a last-minute rewrite. Rewriting your script at 11pm the night before tends to add nervous energy rather than clarity. Read your bullet points once, say your opening line out loud once, then stop. You've done the work. Walking in over-rehearsed and jittery undoes a lot of good preparation.
Frequently asked questions
How far in advance should I start preparing for a salary negotiation?
Give yourself at least two weeks. One week for research (market rate, your evidence, your walk-away number) and one week to write and practise your script out loud several times, so it feels natural rather than memorised by the time you're in the room.
Should I name a number first or wait for my employer to name one?
If you have solid market research, name your number first and anchor the conversation. Whoever states a number first sets the reference point the whole discussion revolves around, and that's an advantage worth taking rather than handing to the other side.
What if my manager says there's no budget at all?
Ask what would need to change for that to be different, and get a specific date to revisit in writing. "No budget right now" is often true but rarely permanent, and a written follow-up date turns a soft no into a scheduled second conversation instead of a dead end.
Is it wrong to negotiate if I don't have another job offer?
No. Most raises happen without a competing offer on the table. Your evidence of performance and market rate is your position, not an external offer, and plenty of people negotiate successfully every year on that basis alone.
Further reading
Related reading: How Do You Write a Salary Negotiation Email That Gets a Positive Response and From Campaigns to Conversations: The Scope of Email Marketing.
