2025 salary budgets

A year ago, participants in WorldatWork’s 2023-2024 Salary Budget Survey predicted a decline in salary increase budgets for 2024 across most of the world. Most countries indeed experienced a drop in 2024 salary increase budgets compared to 2023, often exceeding the forecast. Projections for 2025 suggest further contraction of salary increase budgets is expected in 2025 in almost all surveyed countries according to WorldatWork’s 51st annual Salary Budget Survey. The 2024-2025 Salary Budget Survey, covering nearly 17 million employees from 22 countries, reports detailed information about actual base salary increase and merit budgets for 2024 and projections for 2025.

After forecasting that average overall salary increase budgets would drop to 4.1% this year, U.S. respondents reported that average overall salary increase budgets fell from 4.4% in 2023 to 3.9% this year. They foresee a slight additional decline in 2025 to a 3.8% average budget. In addition to contracting salary increase budgets, this year’s study also revealed that in the U.S. the reported range of salary increase budget amounts is consolidating. 2024 data show fewer extreme budgets, low or high, than in recent years. And within the U.S. and Canada, geographic variation is modest.

Highlights from this year’s study include:

• Organizations are taking action on equity. Across the U.S., Canada, the UK, and India, the majority of organizations (70%) anticipate making pay adjustments to remediate pay equity issues in 2025. These adjustments may include both those required to maintain internal equity among employees as well as those needed to resolve unwarranted differences in pay between different groups of workers.
• Canadian salary increase budgets came in at predicted levels in 2024. After correctly predicting that 2024 salary increase budgets in Canada would average 3.9%, Canadian HR pros anticipate a slight additional decline in 2025 to 3.7%.
• India's substantial increase budgets. India again shows the largest average salary increase budget in the survey, averaging 9.6% for 2024. This figure, matching last year’s prediction for 2024 is a four-tenths decrease from last year’s average of 10%.
• UK salary structure adjustments slow in 2024 but exceed predictions. Coming in at 4.3% in 2024, salary increase budgets in the UK came in at the level projected by participants in last year’s Salary Budget Survey, but salary structure adjustments slightly exceeded predictions. Nonetheless, 2024 structure adjustments, averaging 3.1% in 2024, are lower than 2023 adjustments and are projected to decline further in 2025.

About the survey. WorldatWork collected survey data for the “2024-2025 Salary Budget Survey” from April 8, 2024, to June 15, 2024. The survey was completed by 2,249 organizations, many of which reported data for multiple countries, resulting in 6,536 unique survey responses.

From WCI's HR Answers Now ©2024 CCH Incorporated and its affiliates. All rights reserved.