How to Negotiate a Job Offer (Beyond the Salary Number)

A job offer is a package, not a number. Treating salary as the only thing on the table means missing the parts of the offer that are often easier for an employer to move on: start date, signing bonus, review timeline, and equity, on top of the base figure everyone focuses on.

Get the whole offer in writing first

Before you negotiate anything, make sure you have the complete offer in writing: base salary, bonus structure and how it's calculated, equity or stock options if relevant, pension contribution, holiday allowance, and any signing bonus. Verbal offers are easy to misremember, and you need the full picture to know what's actually worth negotiating.

Work out what's actually flexible

Some parts of an offer move easily, others are set by company policy and rarely change. Base salary, signing bonus, and start date usually have the most room. Standard benefits, like pension matching or holiday allowance for your level, are often fixed across the whole company, and pushing on them tends to waste goodwill you could spend elsewhere.

Ask about the number before you counter it

If the salary is lower than expected, ask what informed that figure before you push back. Companies set numbers based on internal pay bands, budget constraints, or internal equity with existing employees at the same level. Understanding which of these applies tells you whether there's genuine room to move the base salary, or whether you're better off asking for a signing bonus, extra holiday, or an earlier compensation review instead.

Negotiate the start date too

A later start date is one of the easiest things to negotiate and one of the most overlooked. If you need more time to give proper notice at your current job, take a break between roles, or handle something personal, ask for it directly. It costs the employer nothing in most cases and is rarely refused, unlike a salary increase, which comes out of their budget.

Have the conversation, then get it in writing

Negotiate over a call, not by email. Tone and flexibility come through far better in conversation, and email exchanges tend to feel more adversarial than they need to. Once you've agreed on final terms, get everything confirmed in writing, salary, start date, any additional terms, before you resign from your current role or turn down other offers.

If they say the offer is non-negotiable

Sometimes an employer states outright that the number is final, and for the base salary specifically, that's often true. It doesn't mean the rest of the package is fixed too. Ask directly whether the fixed part covers only the base figure or the whole offer, then shift the conversation to whichever elements still have room: signing bonus, start date, an earlier compensation review, extra holiday, or a one-off relocation allowance. If you're weighing a competing offer, mentioning it factually and without an ultimatum can still move things, but only when it's real. An invented competing offer is easy for an experienced hiring manager to spot, and it costs you credibility right at the start of a relationship you're about to build. If nothing moves after that, decide whether the rest of the package, culture, growth, the actual work, outweighs the gap on salary before you accept or walk away.

For more on how this fits together, see How to Negotiate Your Salary (And Why Most People Settle Too Early), How to Follow Up After a Job Interview (Without Seeming Desperate), How to Decline a Job Offer, How to Handle a Job Counter-Offer From Your Current Employer, and How to Prepare for an Internal Interview for a Promotion.