Asking for a pay rise outside your annual review? Discover when to ask, how to build your case and how to negotiate a better salary.
You don’t have to wait for the annual review
There’s a strange convention in employment that says we should discuss salary once a year.
Apparently, your responsibilities can increase in March, you can inherit half of somebody else’s job in May, take responsibility for a major project in June and discover in August that comparable roles are paying considerably more, but your salary must remain untouched until somebody in HR releases the annual performance review forms.
It doesn’t have to work like that.
An annual review is useful because organisations need salary budgets, remuneration structures and some discipline around how pay decisions are made. However, the annual review cycle is an administrative process. It isn’t the only legitimate time for an employee and manager to discuss whether the salary still reflects the job being performed.
There’s also an important distinction between asking for a salary review and simply announcing that you deserve a pay rise. The first opens a commercial conversation about whether your remuneration remains appropriate. The second requires you to prove the conclusion before the conversation has even started.
If your job has materially changed, your responsibilities have increased, you have developed skills that have increased your value, your performance has been consistently strong or credible market evidence suggests your salary has fallen behind, there may be a perfectly reasonable case for discussing it now.
You just need a better argument than your mortgage going up.
Key takeaways
First, understand what you’re actually asking for
Before marching into your manager’s office armed with a salary survey and righteous indignation, work out what the problem actually is.
There are several reasons why somebody might reasonably believe their salary needs reviewing, and they are not all the same. Your job may have become bigger, perhaps because you now manage people you didn’t previously manage, control a larger budget, have acquired additional technical responsibilities or have absorbed work following a restructure.
Your contribution may have increased because you are consistently delivering beyond the expectations on which your original salary was based. Alternatively, your market position may have changed because demand for your skills has increased or your salary has simply failed to keep pace with genuinely comparable roles.
There could also be an internal equity issue, where there’s credible evidence that comparable work within the organisation is being remunerated differently.
Or perhaps nothing significant has changed except that you would quite like more money.
That last one is entirely understandable. Most of us would. Unfortunately, it isn’t much of a business case.
The point of doing this thinking before asking for a meeting is to establish what you actually want your employer to review. “I would like more money” and “the scope of my role has changed significantly since my remuneration was established” may ultimately lead to the same discussion, but one gives your manager considerably more to work with.
The annual review isn’t sacred
Most organisations need a remuneration cycle because allowing hundreds or thousands of individual salary decisions to occur randomly throughout the year would make budgeting difficult and create obvious potential for inconsistency.
That doesn’t mean exceptions are inherently unreasonable.
Even mainstream salary-negotiation guidance recognises circumstances where an out-of-cycle discussion can make sense, particularly after a significant achievement, an increase in responsibilities or where the nature of the role itself has changed.
Timing still matters, though. There’slittle strategic brilliance in asking for a significant salary increase two days after the CEO has announced a hiring freeze and a major cost-reduction program. Equally, waiting until the annual remuneration budget has already been approved may mean your manager agrees completely with your case but has nowhere to obtain the money.
If you understand your organisation’s budgeting cycle, use that knowledge. A conversation before budgets are finalised can be considerably more productive than one afterwards.
The objective isn’t to find a clever moment when your manager is vulnerable, preferably trapped in a lift with you and unable to escape. It is to understand how the organisation actually makes salary decisions and have the conversation at a point when somebody can realistically do something about it.
Build a case, not a grievance
This is where many salary conversations start going wrong.
Employees understandably think about salary from their own perspective. They have been with the organisation for four years, haven’t received a meaningful increase recently, work extremely hard and are now paying substantially more for their mortgage, rent, insurance and groceries.
All of those things may be true, but none necessarily establishes what the job should be worth.
Your manager needs something they can use
Remember that even if your manager agrees with you, they may need approval from HR, their own manager, an executive or somebody controlling the remuneration budget. You are therefore not merely trying to convince the person sitting opposite you. Ideally, you are giving that person enough credible evidence to make the argument on your behalf when you are not in the room.
That changes how you should prepare.
Look at what has changed since your salary was last properly reviewed and compare your original responsibilities with your current ones. Identify additional accountability and significant results. Consider whether you have saved money, generated revenue, improved productivity, reduced risk, retained clients, delivered important projects or taken responsibility that previously sat elsewhere or at a higher organisational level.
Be specific wherever possible. “I have taken on more responsibility” is vague. “Following the restructure, I assumed responsibility for two additional operational functions, five employees and a further $2 million of budget accountability” gives somebody something tangible to assess.
Don’t produce a 47-page prosecution brief either. Three or four strong pieces of evidence will generally be more persuasive than seventeen increasingly desperate examples dating back to the afternoon in 2023 when you stayed late to fix the printer.
Research what the market is actually paying
Market research matters, but salary research is surprisingly easy to do badly.
Start broadly. The Australian Bureau of Statistics publishes earnings information by occupation, industry and other characteristics. It won’t tell you precisely what your job should pay, but it provides useful context.
Jobs and Skills Australiaalso provides occupation and industry information that can help you understand the broader labour market and the environment in which your particular skills sit.
Then look at credible salary guides, advertised vacancies and roles genuinely comparable with yours.
The word comparable matters enormously.
A Financial Controller working for a $40 million regional organisation is not automatically comparable with a Financial Controller at a multinational corporation simply because LinkedIn gives them the same job title. An HR Manager responsible for 80 employees at one location is not necessarily comparable with an HR Manager responsible for 2,000 employees across Australia.
Consider organisation size, geography, industry, complexity, team size, qualifications, experience, reporting level and, most importantly, the actual responsibilities of the position.
Use several sources and look for a pattern. If six reasonably comparable sources suggest the market sits around $130,000 to $145,000 and you are earning $112,000, you have something worth investigating.
If one advertisement says $145,000 and everything else you find says $115,000, congratulations on finding an advertisement. You haven’t discovered the market.
Don’t confuse minimum wages with market value
There’s another distinction worth making because conversations about wages often mix several different things together.
Australia has statutory minimum wages, modern awards and enterprise agreements. The Fair Work Ombudsman provides information about the legal minimum wages and entitlements that may apply to an employee.
Those minimums are obviously important because nobody should be paid below their lawful entitlement. However, a legal minimum entitlement and the market value of your particular role are different questions.
Likewise, economy-wide wage movements provide useful context but don’t automatically establish the increase an individual employee should receive. The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Wage Price Index is useful for understanding how wages are moving across the economy, but an economy-wide percentage isn’t an automatic formula for your individual salary.
Economic data provides context. Your role, responsibilities, contribution and relevant market evidence provide the case.
What about inflation and the cost of living?
This one comes up constantly.
Your mortgage has increased, insurance costs more and the weekly shop occasionally requires the financial planning normally associated with a small infrastructure project. Those pressures are real, and There’s nothing unreasonable about employees being concerned about whether their salary is keeping pace with the cost of living.
However, your employer doesn’t determine the market value of your role by examining your household expenditure.
Inflation can form part of the broader context, particularly where a salary has remained static for a considerable period. The ABS Consumer Price Index can help put those movements into perspective.
But “everything costs more” is rarely the strongest opening argument for an individual salary increase. Your employer is buying your work, capability and contribution, so build the discussion primarily around those things.
There’s nothing wrong with understanding the economic environment. Just don’t confuse an explanation for why you want more money with evidence of why the organisation should pay more money.
You can talk about pay
Salary used to be treated as though discussing it with another employee might cause the building to collapse.
Australian workplace law has changed significantly in this area.
The Fair Work Ombudsman’s guidance on pay secrecy explains employees’ workplace rights to share, or choose not to share, information about their pay and certain employment conditions and to ask other employees about theirs. There are transitional arrangements affecting some older employment contracts, so it is worth checking what applies in your particular circumstances.
That doesn’t mean you should arrive at your salary review announcing that Susan told you what she earns over lunch.
Information about internal salaries may help identify a potential equity issue, but your strongest argument will normally remain the value and level of your own role. Treat salary information as evidence that may warrant further investigation rather than ammunition to fire at Susan.
Susan has enough problems.
Decide what you’re actually asking for
Don’t make your manager guess what you want.
If you believe the evidence supports an increase, have a reasonable position in mind. That might be a particular salary, a range, a percentage adjustment or simply an agreement that the organisation will formally benchmark the role before determining the appropriate remuneration.
Whatever you propose should have some logic behind it.
If you currently earn $110,000 and credible evidence places genuinely comparable roles around $120,000 to $130,000, asking for your remuneration to be reviewed within that range can be explained. Asking for $145,000 because somebody once told you that you should always “leave room to negotiate” is a different strategy and potentially a considerably shorter conversation.
You don’t necessarily have to open with an ultimatum or even a precise number. In some circumstances, it may be more productive to first establish whether your manager agrees that the role has materially changed and whether your remuneration should therefore be reviewed against the market.
Establishing agreement about the problem before negotiating the solution can make for a much better conversation.
Have the conversation properly
Book a meeting and give the discussion the attention it deserves.
Don’t ambush your manager while they’re making coffee, hide the request at the bottom of an email about next Tuesday’s project meeting or suddenly introduce salary during a conversation that was supposed to be about something entirely different.
Give your manager some context when requesting the meeting. You can simply explain that you would like to discuss how your role has developed and review your current remuneration.
When you meet, explain what has changed, provide the evidence, describe the relevant market position and make your request. You do not need a dramatic speech and you certainly don’t need to apologise for raising the subject.
Once you have made the case clearly, give your manager the opportunity to respond. Nervousness often encourages people to keep talking and adding arguments long after they have made their strongest point. Unfortunately, argument number nine is often considerably weaker than argument number three.
A salary discussion is a conversation, not a hostage negotiation. Make the case and then listen.
A simple structure for the conversation
You don’t need to memorise a script, but you should know what you are trying to say.
Start with the situation by establishing when your salary was last properly reviewed and what the role looked like at that point. Then explain the change, focusing on what has materially developed since then.
Follow that with the evidence, including responsibilities, results and credible market information that demonstrate why a review is justified. Finally, make the request and explain what you are asking the organisation to consider.
For example, you might explain that your role was originally responsible for one operational area, but following two restructures you now manage three. Your team has increased from six to eleven employees, you have taken accountability for a significant additional budget and market benchmarking indicates that genuinely comparable positions are remunerated above your current salary.
That gives your manager something concrete to consider and, if necessary, take further through the organisation.
By comparison, telling them that you have worked really hard, haven’t had an increase recently and everything has become expensive explains why you would like more money. It doesn’t necessarily explain why the job should be paid more.
There’s an important difference.
Where people get it wrong
One of the most common mistakes is making the conversation entirely personal. Your financial commitments may be very real, but they don’t establish the commercial value of your job.
Another is relying too heavily on tenure. Staying somewhere for five years demonstrates five years of service. It doesn’t automatically demonstrate five years of increasing value. If your contribution and responsibilities have grown during those five years, talk about that rather than expecting the calendar to do the work for you.
Comparing job titles rather than actual jobs is another common problem. Two people called “Operations Manager”, “HR Manager” or “Project Manager” can be doing work of completely different scale and complexity, which is why good market research needs to go considerably deeper than the heading on a job advertisement.
Then There’s the nuclear option: threatening resignation when you don’t actually intend to resign.
An external job offer can certainly affect a salary negotiation, and there may be circumstances where you genuinely need to decide between staying and leaving. However, using another offer as a bluff is risky. If you tell your employer, “Pay me this or I’m leaving”, There’s always the inconvenient possibility that the response is, “We understand. When will your last day be?”
Finally, don’t treat the outcome as a verdict on your worth as a human being. Your employer can genuinely value you and still decline an increase because of budgets, remuneration structures, internal equity or other constraints.
What matters then is understanding why they have said no and what happens next.
What if they say no?
If the answer is no, don’t assume that is the end of the conversation because the reason behind the answer is arguably more important than the word itself.
There’s a significant difference between your manager saying, “We don’t believe the role warrants a higher salary”, and saying, “I agree with your case, but There’s no budget available until the next remuneration cycle.”
They may agree with the principle but need more evidence. They may be prepared to formally benchmark the role. They may need approval from somebody else. They may genuinely believe your current remuneration is appropriate.
Those are completely different answers and should lead to different next steps.
If the organisation agrees There’sa legitimate case but cannot act immediately, ask for a specific review date and clarify what will happen at that point. If an increase depends on achieving particular objectives, get those objectives clear rather than relying on a vague promise that the matter can be “looked at later”.
If the organisation fundamentally disagrees with your assessment of the role, ask why. You may discover that your market research is wrong, that the organisation values the position differently or that There’sa significant gap between how you perceive your contribution and how your manager perceives it.
None of that is particularly comfortable, but it is useful information.
If, on the other hand, you repeatedly receive vague promises, moving dates and no meaningful explanation, that is useful information as well. At that point, you may want to think more broadly about whether the organisation is still the right place for your career, which is where our URHIRED guide to job hunting while still employed may also be worth reading.
What if they genuinely can’t increase the salary?
Money isn’t the only element of an employment package, although we shouldn’t pretend a fruit bowl and permission to wear jeans on Friday are equivalent substitutes for $15,000.
If the organisation genuinely cannot move on base salary, there may be other things worth discussing. Depending on your circumstances, additional leave, greater flexibility, professional development, an agreed bonus arrangement, changed working hours, additional superannuation or a documented pathway to promotion may have genuine value.
The important thing is not to accept something you don’t actually value merely because it has been offered as an alternative.
A gym membership you will never use remains worth approximately one gym membership you will never use.
There’s also nothing wrong with saying that you appreciate the alternatives, but that remuneration remains the central issue for you. Salary negotiations don’t have to become adversarial simply because the employer and employee have different positions.
FAQ
1. Can I ask for a pay rise before my annual review?
Yes. There’s no general rule requiring employees to wait for an annual performance review before discussing salary. Whether an employer will consider an out-of-cycle increase will depend on its remuneration policies, budget and the circumstances supporting your request.
2. What is a good reason to ask for an out-of-cycle salary review?
Strong reasons can include a significant increase in responsibilities, a substantial change in role scope, sustained performance above the requirements of the position, acquisition of valuable skills or credible evidence that your remuneration has moved materially below the market. The stronger cases generally involve something that has changed since your existing salary was established.
3. How much of a pay rise should I ask for?
There’s no universal percentage. Research genuinely comparable positions and consider your responsibilities, experience, industry, location and current remuneration. Whatever amount or range you propose should have a rational explanation behind it rather than being a number selected because it sounds attractive.
4. Should I mention inflation when asking for a pay rise?
You can use inflation and broader wage movements as context, but they should rarely be your entire argument. Your strongest case will normally concern the value, scope and responsibilities of your work and credible evidence about what comparable work is paying.
5. Should I tell my manager what colleagues earn?
Australian employees generally have workplace rights concerning sharing and discussing pay, although transitional arrangements can apply to some older employment contracts. However, using a colleague’s salary as your only argument is unlikely to be particularly persuasive. Focus on comparable work, responsibilities and objective evidence.
Conclusion: the calendar doesn’t determine your value
There’s nothing wrong with an annual salary review. Organisations need processes and budgets, and employees benefit from some certainty about when remuneration will normally be considered. The problem comes when the process itself becomes the answer, particularly when the job being performed has changed significantly since the salary was originally determined.
If your role today is materially different from the role your salary was set to reflect, it is reasonable to raise the issue. You don’t need to manufacture an ultimatum, produce a spreadsheet showing the increasing price of groceries or wait another eight months simply because the performance review system says November.
Do your research, understand the organisation’s position and be realistic about your own performance before raising the issue. If the evidence suggests that your responsibilities, contribution and salary are no longer properly aligned, build the case and have the conversation professionally.
You may get the increase you requested. You may be told that the organisation agrees but needs you to wait until the next budget cycle. You may also discover that your employer has a very different view of what your role is worth. None of those outcomes should be confused with failure, because each gives you information you didn’t have before the conversation.
A salary review isn’t about winning an argument with your employer. It is about establishing whether the job you are doing, the value you are providing and the salary you are receiving still reasonably belong together.
If they don’t, then that is a perfectly reasonable conversation to have before somebody in HR sends you an annual appraisal form.
