Salary Negotiation: How to Set Your Number with Official Pay Data

Most negotiation advice is about tone. Tone matters, but the part people get wrong most often is the number itself: they ask for a figure they cannot justify, or they anchor to their current salary instead of to the market. This guide is about choosing a number you can defend, and then using it well. It uses US data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS); if you work elsewhere, the method still applies, but you will need your own country's official pay statistics.

Step 1: find the pay band for your occupation

BLS publishes, for about 830 occupations, the wage below which 10%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 90% of workers fall. The band between the 25th and 75th percentile is where the middle half of workers sit, and it is the most useful starting point for a negotiation because it excludes the extremes at both ends.

Occupation (SOC)	10th	25th	Median	75th	90th
Software Developers (15-1252)	$82,460	$105,210	$135,980	$171,980	$214,670
Registered Nurses (29-1141)	$68,940	$80,330	$97,550	$112,350	$137,470
Accountants and Auditors (13-2011)	$56,020	$67,020	$83,680	$109,810	$144,090
Marketing Managers (11-2021)	$90,260	$123,020	$166,790	$216,410	$293,610
Human Resources Specialists (13-1071)	$47,180	$58,610	$75,940	$99,380	$128,720
Customer Service Representatives (43-4051)	$31,750	$36,870	$44,770	$51,780	$63,590
General and Operations Managers (11-1021)	$50,090	$72,320	$105,770	$167,280	$253,390

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025, United States, national, all industries, annual wages in US dollars (file retrieved 20 October 2026). Percentiles: the share of workers in the occupation who earn less than the figure. Excludes overtime, nonproduction bonuses and employer benefit costs; covers wage and salary workers only. BLS methodology.

Two things stand out in this table.

The band is wide. For software developers the middle half runs from $105,210 to $171,980. Someone at the 75th percentile earns about 63% more than someone at the 25th, in the same occupation. A title alone does not tell you what a job should pay, which is exactly why there is something to negotiate.

How wide it is depends on the occupation. Divide the width of the middle band by the median and you get a rough measure of how much pay varies inside a job:

• Registered nurses: $80,330 to $112,350 around a median of $97,550, about a third of the median.
• Customer service representatives: $36,870 to $51,780 around $44,770, also about a third.
• Accountants and auditors: $67,020 to $109,810 around $83,680, about half.
• General and operations managers: $72,320 to $167,280 around $105,770, almost the whole median again.

This is our own calculation from the BLS figures, and it has a practical meaning. Where the band is narrow, pay is often set by scales, grades or collective agreements, and your negotiation is usually about where you are placed on the scale (step, grade, shift premiums) rather than the number itself. Where the band is wide, the number is genuinely open, and preparation pays off most.

You can look up any occupation in our US wage data table. Match your work to the closest official occupation by duties, not by job title: companies use titles loosely, while BLS classifies jobs by what people do.

Step 2: place yourself inside the band

The data tells you the range. Where you belong in it is a judgment, and nobody publishes an official answer. A reasonable way to reason about it:

• Below the 25th percentile is common for people new to the occupation, for part-year work and for small employers in low-cost areas. If you have several years of relevant experience and an offer lands here, ask why.
• Around the median is a sensible expectation for someone fully competent in the role with a few years of experience.
• Toward the 75th percentile fits people who bring something specific the employer needs: a scarce skill, a track record they can show, or responsibility beyond the typical job.
• Above the 90th is usually senior specialists, high-cost cities, or pay structures with large incentives.

Then adjust for location. The figures above are national. For the five occupations we chart by state, the highest and lowest state medians sit between about 20% and more than 40% above or below the national median. Our guide to remote pay and geography shows the full state range for five occupations, and the BLS profile linked from each row in the table above breaks pay down by state and metropolitan area.

A worked example. Suppose you are an accountant with six years of experience, an offer of $78,000 and no unusual specialism. The national median for accountants and auditors is $83,680 and the 75th percentile $109,810. If your state's median is close to the national one, a target somewhere between the median and the 75th percentile, for example $90,000, is defensible: it is above the median because of your experience, and well inside the range BLS reports. If your state's median is lower, move the target down with it. The example is arithmetic on published figures; it is not a prediction of what any employer will pay.

Step 3: price the whole offer, not only the base

The BLS percentiles are base pay. They exclude overtime, shift differentials, nonproduction bonuses (such as a discretionary annual bonus) and everything the employer spends on benefits. That matters when comparing offers.

Across all US private-sector jobs, benefits make up 30.0% of what employers spend on compensation, according to the BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation release for June 2026. Nonproduction bonuses alone are 2.8%. Those are averages and vary a lot between employers, but they show that two offers with the same base can be worth quite different amounts. Our guide to negotiating benefits shows how to put a value on paid leave, retirement matching and other items, and the Job Offer Comparator does the arithmetic.

Step 4: make one specific ask, with a reason

When you respond to an offer, give a single number and the reason for it. Continuing the example above, "Based on the BLS range for this occupation and my experience with X, I was hoping for $90,000" is stronger than "Is there any flexibility?", because it gives the other side something concrete to take to whoever approves the budget.

There is research behind putting a number on the table. In experiments by Galinsky and Mussweiler (2001), the side that made the first offer tended to get a better result, and first offers strongly predicted final prices. Our guide to negotiation psychology covers the findings and their limits. The practical point is that an ask anchored in published data is both an anchor and a justification.

If you are asked for your expectations before an offer, you can give a range whose bottom is the lowest figure you would accept. Many employers will offer at the bottom of whatever range you give.

Step 5: handle the answer

If they agree, ask for a revised written offer before you resign from anywhere or turn down other offers.

If they come back lower, you can accept, make one further counter, or move to other parts of the package: a sign-on payment, an earlier pay review, more paid leave or a different start date. Ask what the constraint is. A reply such as "the band for this grade tops out at $85,000" (an illustrative example) is useful information; it may mean the job is graded too low, which is a different conversation.

If they say no to everything, decide on the offer as it stands. A polite counter rarely costs an offer at employers that negotiate as a matter of routine, but it is not risk-free everywhere.

For exact wording, see negotiation scripts, and for a first job specifically, negotiating your first job offer.

When there is little to negotiate

Some pay is set by rules. US federal jobs are paid on the General Schedule, where each grade has fixed steps (see our government pay guide); the negotiation, where there is one, is about grade and starting step. Many unionised and public-sector jobs work the same way. Norms also differ between countries and sectors. Before you counter, find out how pay is set at the employer.

Why the starting number matters

A hypothetical example: if you start at $90,000 instead of $100,000 and the $10,000 gap persisted for 30 years while growing 3% a year with your raises, the total difference would be about $475,000 before tax, from the formula 10,000 × (1.03^30 − 1) / 0.03. That is an upper bound under simple assumptions; in reality people change employers and each new offer partly resets the gap. Even so, the first number tends to follow you for a while.

Key takeaways

• Start from the 25th to 75th percentile band for your occupation, not from your current salary.
• The width of that band varies a lot by occupation, and tells you how open the number is.
• Place yourself inside the band using experience, scarcity of your skills and location, and adjust for your state.
• Compare offers on total compensation; the BLS figures exclude bonuses and benefits.
• Ask for one specific, justified number and get the final terms in writing.