The strongest evidence is external and verifiable: published wage data for your occupation and metropolitan area, a written competing offer, and a dated record of scope you have taken on. Personal need, length of service and effort are all true and none of them are arguments about the market. Your manager has to justify the case to someone who has never met you, so it has to survive being repeated by a third party.
Two kinds of evidence, and you need both
Market evidence — the published median and spread for your occupation in your metro, plus advertised ranges locally including your own employer’s. This says what the role is worth.
Delivery evidence — what you did, with numbers where they exist. This says why you should sit above the middle of it.
Market evidence alone invites the answer that the band is the band. Delivery evidence alone invites a conversation about how everybody works hard. Together they are much harder to decline.
Getting numbers onto your delivery
Most work has a measurable side even where the job is not measured. Volume handled, time saved, errors avoided, revenue influenced, people trained, processes you now own that somebody else used to.
Where nothing is countable, scope still is: what you are responsible for now that you were not a year ago. Growth in scope is the clearest justification for a pay change and it is checkable without a metric.
Keep the record as you go
A running note, updated monthly, takes a few minutes and produces something you cannot reconstruct at review time. People systematically forget their own first two quarters.
It also protects against manager turnover, which is one of the most common reasons a strong year goes unrewarded — the person who saw it has gone and the record is the only thing left.
Match yourself to the occupation, not the title
Published wage data is organized by occupational code, defined by duties. Titles are invented by employers, so looking up your title averages across genuinely different levels.
If your role spans two codes, look up both and say so. “This role is roughly two-thirds X and one-third Y, and here are the medians for each” is a stronger argument than either alone.
The one page to hand over
Three or four delivery points with numbers, the published median and seventy-fifth percentile for your occupation and metro, and a specific request. That is it.
It is written for your manager to use rather than for you to feel prepared. Anything longer gets summarized by somebody else, and the summary is what actually reaches the decision.
What to leave out
Colleagues’ salaries, even if you know them. Your personal expenses. How long it has been since your last increase, on its own. Anything about what you would do if the answer is no, unless you mean it.
Each of those moves the conversation off the ground where you are strong and onto ground where the employer has no obligation.
Ask for a specific number
Not “more”, and not a range with a low bottom. Name a figure and tie it to the evidence: the seventy-fifth percentile for the occupation in the metro, given the scope you have documented.
A specific request with a stated basis is something a manager can advocate for. A vague one gets converted into whatever the budget was going to produce anyway.
What to do with the answer
If yes, get it in writing with an effective date. If partial, ask what would close the rest and by when. If no, ask whether the constraint is the budget, the band, or the case — those are three different problems with three different responses.
That last question is the most useful one in the whole conversation, and almost nobody asks it.
A worked one-pager
Three lines of delivery: what you took on, what it produced, and what it replaced. Then two lines of market: the published median and seventy-fifth percentile for your occupation in your metro, with the source and period named. Then one line of request.
“The May 2025 wage survey puts the median for this occupation in this metro at X and the seventy-fifth at Y. Given the scope above, I am asking for Y.” Six lines, every one checkable.
Why checkability is the whole point
Your manager is going to repeat this to somebody else, probably from memory, in a meeting where several people are competing for the same budget.
Numbers survive that retelling and adjectives do not. A case built on figures arrives intact; one built on how hard you have worked arrives as a general impression alongside everybody else’s.
Common questions
What is the strongest single piece of evidence?
A written competing offer, because it is checkable and immediate. It is also the one with a cost, since it raises the question of whether you are leaving regardless.
Should I use national or local wage figures?
Local. Published metropolitan figures for your occupation are the fairest comparison and the hardest to wave away.
Does length of service count?
Only through what it produced. Time alone is not a market argument; the scope you picked up along the way is.
Should I name a number?
Yes, with its basis. A direction invites a no; a figure with a source behind it invites a specific answer.
What about personal circumstances?
Leave them out. They are true and they are not evidence about what the role is worth, and they move the conversation onto sympathy.
What evidence do I need for a raise?
Market evidence — published medians and advertised ranges — and delivery evidence with numbers. Either alone is easy to decline.
What if my work is not measurable?
Use scope: what you are responsible for now that you were not a year ago. Growth in scope is checkable without a metric.
What should I ask if the answer is no?
Whether the constraint is the budget, the band, or the case. Those are three different problems with three different responses.