From sales rep to CEO

Home Depot is the biggest retailer by market capitalization, and its share price reflects the rise in earnings over the years. While the company rewards its C-suite executives handsomely for meeting internal targets, it also pays attention to its frontline workers in its retail stores.

Here’s who gets paid the most at Home Depot and what the median compensation among employees is.

Home Depot’s top executives were among the highest-paid employees in fiscal 2025 as the retailer continued to post strong earnings and meet company targets. CEO Ted Decker had a base salary of $1.4 billion, but stock options and cash awards lifted his total compensation to $16.19 million.

Among executive vice presidents, Ann-Marie Campbell, who oversees U.S. stores, had a salary of $1 million, but her total compensation was seven times that amount.

Related: How many employees does Home Depot have?

Home Depot’s median compensation, which includes salary and stock awards, was $37,881 in fiscal 2025. That was based on the hourly pay of an associate in the U.S. Decker’s compensation as CEO amounted to $16.19 million, which puts the company’s CEO pay ratio at 427 to 1.

This pay ratio is down from five years earlier. Its CEO-to-median-employee pay ratio was 511 to 1 in fiscal 2020, when CEO compensation was almost $14 million, and the median was $27,389.

By comparison, at Nvidia, where the media employee compensation was much higher at around $300,000, the CEO pay ratio was 166 to 1 in fiscal 2025.

Home Depot generally refers to its employees as associates, whether they work on the floor at its stores or in an office at the company’s corporate headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. The retailer had about 472,400 associates at the end of fiscal 2025, but the majority work in the company’s 2,359 stores and are paid hourly.

Related: Home Depot’s Atlanta headquarters: Everything you need to know

On Home Depot’s careers page on its website, as of mid-April 2026, there were almost 19,000 job listings for various roles in departments including customer service/sales, distribution center and warehouse, merchandising, and support.

In Glendale, New York, which is part of Queens, a listing for customer service/sales associate put the hourly rate at $19.50. (The minimum wage in New York City is $17 an hour.) Based on a 40-hour workweek, this hourly rate would translate to around $40,560 annually.

That would put it below the median annual salary of $62,608 in the U.S. as reported by Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

More on Home Depot:

Home Depot says that more than 90% of its U.S. store leaders started their careers at the company as hourly associates. That suggests there are opportunities to climb Home Depot’s corporate ladder, so to speak. The retailer says it provides “associates with training, tools, and optimized processes to empower them to drive sales and with meaningful career advancement opportunities.”

Related: How many stores does Home Depot have? The hardware giant’s global footprint

Beyond base pay, the home improvement retailer provides benefits and incentives to retain its associates, including an employee stock purchase program. For those in management positions, Home Depot said it increased equity awards to its field leadership, including store managers and assistant store managers, in fiscal 2025.

In its early years, as sales and earnings increased, so did Home Depot’s stock price. Stock incentive programs turned some associates into millionaires. A $10,000 investment on the first day of trading in 1981 would have returned $168 million as of mid-April 2026.

Related: Home Depot’s stock split history: What you need to know

This story was originally published by TheStreet on Apr 19, 2026, where it first appeared in the Employment section. Add TheStreet as a Preferred Source by clicking here.