A Counteroffer May Improve Your Salary. Does It Improve Your Position?
Oct 14, 2026
You resign. Suddenly, the salary that apparently could not move six months ago can move.
There may be a new title, more flexibility or a promise of progression. Perhaps your employer is ready to discuss responsibilities you have been asking to take on for years.
A counteroffer can make a difficult decision harder. It can also make one question impossible to avoid:
Does this offer improve your position, or only your pay?
That distinction matters to professionals weighing a move. It matters just as much to employers deciding whether a counteroffer is a retention strategy or a costly pause before the same resignation arrives again.
When a counteroffer can make sense
Counteroffers are not automatically a mistake.
If you enjoy the work, trust your manager and want to stay, but your remuneration has fallen behind your responsibilities, a salary review may address the problem.
A counteroffer may also be worth considering if it changes the conditions that prompted you to look elsewhere: the scope of your role, flexibility, development, leadership responsibilities or the work itself.
The risk comes when the offer changes the number but leaves the reason for leaving untouched.
SEEK’s research gives employees and employers reason to look beyond the immediate pay rise: its guidance reports that 70% of people who accepted a counteroffer had left that employer within a year. The finding comes from independent research conducted by Nature on behalf of SEEK and published in April 2022. It is a useful warning, not a prediction about what any one person will do. But it points to a practical test: what changed when the salary changed?
Three questions to ask before you decide
A counteroffer should be assessed across three parts of your life: your professional direction, your personal circumstances and your financial position.
1. What happens to your career if you stay?
Set the money aside for a moment. What will your work look like six months from now?
Will your responsibilities change? Will you have greater accountability, better project exposure or a realistic path to progression? Are you learning from leaders you respect? Are commitments about promotion or development specific, documented and achievable?
In technical fields such as water and infrastructure, the experience you build over the next few years can shape your longer-term market value. An immediate increase may be welcome, but it is only one part of that value.
The question is not only, “What will they pay me to stay?”
It is also, “What kind of professional will this role help me become?”
2. Will staying improve your life outside work?
People rarely begin looking for a job because of one figure on a payslip. The reasons may include a difficult manager relationship, long travel, inflexible hours, project pressure, burnout, poor culture or a lack of autonomy.
If those conditions contributed to your decision, ask whether the counteroffer changes them. Another $15,000 will not shorten a commute or repair a strained working relationship. It does not, by itself, create flexibility or reduce an unreasonable workload.
Remuneration matters. So does the way work fits into your life. Before accepting, be clear about which conditions will change, who is responsible for changing them and when.
3. Does the offer improve your financial position over time?
Compare like with like. Is the new figure base salary, base plus superannuation or total fixed remuneration? Does the alternative role include a vehicle, allowance, incentive or other benefits? What happens at the next salary review?
Consider where the counteroffer places you in your employer’s salary range. A substantial increase now may leave less room for future movement. Ask whether the pay rise reflects a lasting change in the role or the immediate cost of replacing you.
Then weigh the longer view. Another role may bring greater accountability, specialist experience or a stronger progression path. Those factors can affect future earnings, even if the first offer is not the highest number on the table.
There is no universal answer. The useful comparison is between the full positions not just their headline salaries.
The cost of using another offer as leverage
Some employees enter a recruitment process without intending to take the job. They want an external offer to prompt a pay rise at their current organisation.
It is an understandable response when internal requests for a salary review have gone nowhere. But it carries a cost. Another employer invests time assessing you, and you create a decision you may not be prepared to make.
SEEK’s research found that half of people who accepted a counteroffer had intended to change jobs; the other half had been using the external process as leverage. That split is a reminder to be honest with yourself before you begin.
If you pursue another role, be prepared to accept it. If your aim is to stay, start with an evidence-based conversation at work. Explain how your responsibilities have changed, what outcomes you deliver and how the market values comparable work. Ask what needs to happen for you to progress.
You may not get the answer you want. But you will be discussing the real issue directly.
Why was the offer possible only after you resigned?
It is a fair question. It is not, by itself, proof that your employer deliberately undervalued you.
Salary structures can lag behind changing responsibilities. Managers can miss signals. Budgets and market conditions change. Sometimes expectations have never been clearly discussed.
Still, an employer should be able to explain why the change is possible now. If the additional salary is commercially reasonable, what prevented a review earlier? If the promotion was appropriate, why did another organisation’s offer prompt the conversation? If flexibility is now available, what has changed?
These questions need not decide the outcome. They can help you understand the offer you are being asked to accept.
The retention question for employers
When a resignation arrives, the instinctive question is often, “What will it cost to keep this person?”
A better place to start is, “What made them willing to leave?”
If the issue is pay, address pay. If it is progression, leadership, workload, flexibility or development, a salary increase alone may buy time without rebuilding commitment.
Employers should also consider what a counteroffer signals to the rest of the team. If an employee needed an external offer before their salary was reviewed, colleagues may wonder whether the same is true for them.
Retention starts before a resignation. Regular career conversations, credible development plans, clear progression and market-informed remuneration help employers understand what matters to people while there is still time to act.
Make the decision against the reason you started looking
Before you respond, write down why you began exploring other jobs. Then put the counteroffer beside that list.
What has genuinely changed?
- Professionally: will your role, development or future opportunities improve?
- Personally: will your working life fit better with the rest of your life?
- Financially: does the complete package strengthen your position now and over time?
If the counteroffer addresses those reasons, staying may be the right decision. If only the salary changed, you may still have the same problem at a higher rate of pay.
Know your value before you need leverage
Uncertainty about market value can push people toward an external offer simply to start a conversation. Employers face a related challenge when setting salaries, reviewing existing staff or responding to a resignation.
That is one reason Telos Co is producing the 2026/27 Australian Water Sector Salary & Workforce Insight Guide. It is designed to give water professionals and employers more context than salary figures alone: career level, scope, accountability and the factors that shape market value.
An informed salary conversation should not depend on a resignation to begin.
Before accepting your next counteroffer, ask yourself:
Am I being paid more to stay or am I choosing a better position?
Sources
- SEEK: “Should you accept a counter offer?”. The article cites independent research conducted by Nature on behalf of SEEK and published in April 2022; SEEK’s guidance was updated on 23 July 2026.
- SEEK Hiring Advice: “Why making a counter offer could be the wrong move.” This article also draws on independent research conducted by Nature on SEEK’s behalf.