Salary History Spreadsheet

Each raise feels like a number at the time. Strung together, they tell a different story — how fast your pay has really grown, whether it kept up with prices, and what to bring to the next compensation conversation.

What This Workbook Does

• One row per pay change: effective date, employer, role, type of change and new annual pay.
• Increase in dollars and percent, months since the last change, and each raise converted to an annual rate.
• Compound annual growth in pay across the whole record, and an average raise that excludes new-hire changes.
• A comparison with a benchmark rate you set, such as inflation over the same period.

Compound growth is calculated from the first and last salary over the actual time elapsed, not by averaging the raise percentages, which overstates growth.

How to Use It

1. Enter one row per pay change, oldest first; each row is compared with the one above.
2. Enter annual pay, using the same basis throughout.
3. Tag each change by type — merit, market, promotion or new hire.
4. Use the annualized column to compare raises granted on different cycles.
5. Set the benchmark rate to inflation over the same period, or to what you believe the market moved.
6. Read the difference against the benchmark — the figure to bring to a compensation conversation.

What It Will Not Do

Base pay only. A year with a small raise and a large bonus looks worse here than it was, and a move that traded salary for equity can look like a step backward.