How to Research Your Market Salary Before Negotiating

Salary research often goes wrong before the negotiation even starts. Someone searches a job title, finds three websites with very different numbers, averages them together and treats the result as market value. The problem is that the underlying jobs may not be comparable at all. A national “operations manager” average can combine employers, industries, locations and levels of responsibility that have little in common with the role you are evaluating.

A better approach is to narrow the comparison step by step. Start with the work itself, then location, industry and level. Use broad wage data to understand the distribution, current postings to see what employers are advertising, and your own scope and experience to decide where within that range your case belongs.

Start With the Job You Actually Do

The first step is not searching for a salary. It is identifying the correct occupation.

Job titles are inconsistent across employers. “Analyst,” “manager,” “coordinator” and “specialist” can each cover a wide range of work.

Compare the role using:

• core responsibilities;
• decision-making authority;
• technical or professional skills required;
• team or budget responsibility;
• client responsibility;
• complexity of the work;
• required education or credentials; and
• the level of independence expected.

BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics classify workers by occupation based on the work performed, which is why matching the duties is more useful than matching the title alone.

Use BLS OEWS as Your Baseline

The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program is one of the strongest starting points for U.S. salary research. Current OEWS data cover about 830 occupations across the nation, states and approximately 530 metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas.

The current BLS salary-negotiation guidance uses May 2025 OEWS estimates and specifically explains how the data can support both starting-salary negotiations and requests for a raise.

For each occupation, look beyond the mean wage. BLS publishes percentile wages including:

• 10th percentile;
• 25th percentile;
• 50th percentile, or median;
• 75th percentile; and
• 90th percentile.

The distribution is more useful than a single average because it shows the spread of pay within an occupation.

Do Not Automatically Place Yourself at a Percentile

BLS notes that experience and education can affect where an individual may fall within a wage distribution, but location and industry also matter. A percentile is therefore not a formula such as “five years of experience equals the 75th percentile.”

Narrow the Data to Your Location

National wage data are useful for orientation, but local data are often much more relevant to a negotiation.

BLS publishes OEWS estimates for states and hundreds of metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas. CareerOneStop’s Salary Finder, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration, also lets you search wages by occupation and location using BLS OEWS data.

If you work remotely, location can be more complicated. Employers may use national pay, employee-location pay zones, headquarters-based ranges or another compensation model. Ask how the employer determines the range instead of assuming a remote job has one national market salary.

Do Not Replace Wage Research With a Cost-of-Living Calculator

A cost-of-living calculator and market wage data answer different questions. Cost of living and market wages are related, but they are not the same thing.

Your personal housing or childcare expenses can determine whether a salary works for you. They do not tell you what employers in that labor market actually pay for a particular occupation.

For negotiation, wage data should usually carry more weight than a calculation that says City A is 18% more expensive than City B.

Check How Much Industry Changes the Range

BLS notes that workers in the same occupation can earn different wages across industries.

That can happen because industries differ in:

• working conditions;
• skill demand;
• location;
• business economics;
• union prevalence;
• regulation;
• customer type; and
• how central the occupation is to the business.

The current BLS salary-negotiation guide gives an example using computer systems analysts. May 2025 mean and percentile wages for that occupation varied materially between industries such as colleges and universities, insurance carriers, computer systems design and aerospace manufacturing.

The lesson is not that one industry always pays more. It is that industry can make a broad cross-industry salary number less relevant.

Add Current Job Postings to the Research

Government wage data show what workers are earning across a broad labor market. Current job postings can show what employers are advertising for roles that are open now.

Search for positions that match:

• occupation;
• location or remote-pay policy;
• level;
• industry;
• team responsibility;
• required experience;
• important technical skills; and
• job scope.

Where a posting includes a salary range, record it together with enough context to know why you considered the job comparable.

Do not average these three ranges mechanically. Employer B’s broader responsibilities may justify its higher band.

Use Posted Ranges Carefully

A posted range does not necessarily tell you:

• where most hires enter the band;
• how much room exists for future raises;
• how the employer sets pay within the range;
• whether bonus or equity materially changes the package; or
• whether the role is truly equivalent to yours.

Salary-transparency requirements also vary by jurisdiction, so not every U.S. posting will provide a range.

Use Recruiter and Crowdsourced Data as Supporting Evidence

Private salary websites, recruiter reports and employee-submitted compensation data can add useful context, particularly for specialized roles where public datasets are broad.

But they can also introduce problems:

• small sample sizes;
• self-reported data;
• unclear job levels;
• old submissions;
• base salary mixed with total compensation;
• location differences; and
• selection bias.

Use these sources to check whether your BLS and job-posting research is pointing in the same general direction. Avoid allowing one unusually high anonymous submission to become your salary target.

Adjust for Your Actual Scope and Evidence

Once the market research gives you a broad range, compare your own role to the positions behind that range.

Factors that may support a stronger position include:

• broader decision-making authority;
• specialized skills that are relevant to the role;
• management responsibility;
• larger customers or accounts;
• budget ownership;
• credentials required by the job;
• strong directly relevant experience;
• responsibility across multiple locations or functions; and
• a record of results in similar work.

The evidence matters more than the adjective.

If you are researching for an internal raise, compare how your current responsibilities have changed since your compensation was last set. If you are evaluating an external offer, compare your experience with the actual requirements of the new role.

Know What BLS Wage Data Do Not Measure

OEWS is a strong salary-research source, but it has boundaries.

BLS states that the survey covers wage and salary workers in nonfarm establishments. It does not include:

• self-employed workers;
• owners and partners in unincorporated firms;
• private household workers; or
• unpaid family workers.

That matters if you are comparing an employee salary with freelance, consulting or business income.

OEWS Wages Are Not the Same as Total Compensation

BLS defines OEWS wages as straight-time gross pay. The measure includes items such as base pay, guaranteed pay, commissions, production bonuses and tips, but excludes items including overtime, severance, shift differentials, nonproduction bonuses, employer benefit costs and tuition reimbursement.

So a wage estimate should not be treated as a complete benefits comparison.

If one employer offers a lower base salary but materially stronger health coverage, retirement contributions or another benefit, evaluate those separately.

Annual Estimates Can Use a 2,080-Hour Conversion

For most occupations, BLS calculates annual wage estimates from hourly estimates using a standard 2,080-hour work year. BLS notes that this may not represent actual annual pay for workers who work more or fewer hours.

For occupations where that conversion is not appropriate, BLS may publish only annual or only hourly wages.

If you need to compare an hourly posting with an annual salary, an hourly-to-salary calculator can put both figures on the same basis before you compare the roles.

Build a Market Salary Range You Can Defend

After gathering the evidence, summarize it instead of bringing ten browser tabs into the negotiation.

Your reasonable market range does not have to match one source exactly. It should be a conclusion that the sources collectively support.

Turn the Research Into a Negotiation Number

Market research gives you the evidence. Your negotiation strategy determines what you ask for.

For a job offer, consider:

• the employer’s offer;
• the employer’s stated range, if known;
• your market research;
• how closely your experience matches the role;
• the rest of the compensation package; and
• the minimum package you would actually accept.

For a current job, also consider:

• how your role has expanded;
• your current salary;
• your employer’s pay structure;
• your documented results; and
• whether the role may need promotion or re-leveling rather than a normal merit increase.

Then make a request that can be explained in one or two sentences.

The same research can help you answer salary expectations during an interview without guessing. For a new offer, it also gives you evidence for negotiating salary; internally, it can support a raise conversation.

Common Salary Research Mistakes

The purpose of salary research is not to prove that you deserve the highest number available. It is to reduce uncertainty enough that you can make a credible request and recognize whether an offer is competitive.