Market Salary Benchmark Calculator

Work out market salary benchmark instantly with clear inputs, formula shown and shareable results.

About Market Salary Benchmark Calculator

Benchmarking against published quartiles avoids any distributional assumption. The inter-quartile range shows how much dispersion the market tolerates for the role, and the gap to the upper quartile is the concrete number to take into a pay conversation.

Formulas

Variance from median

Variance % = (Your salary - Median) / Median x 100

Inter-quartile range

IQR = 75th percentile - 25th percentile

Worked example

With the default values below, Market Salary Benchmark Calculator returns Variance from the market median of 3.70%. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.

Inputs used

Your salary: 1,400,000
Market 25th percentile: 1,100,000
Market median: 1,350,000
Market 75th percentile: 1,700,000

Results

Variance from the market median: 3.70%
Position in the market: Between the 50th and 75th percentile
Gap to the upper quartile: $300,000.00
Inter-quartile range: $600,000.00

Step by step

1Values used
2Variance from median
3Inter-quartile range
4Variance from the market median= 3.70
5Position in the market= Between the 50th and 75th percentile
6Gap to the upper quartile= 300,000.00
7Inter-quartile range= 600,000.00

Assumptions and limits

The result is derived only from the 4 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
In particular, this calculator does not take inflation, tax, fees or charges or compounding frequency into account.
Figures are rounded for display to 2 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.

How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which percentile should I target?

Median if you are fully competent, upper quartile if you consistently exceed expectations or hold scarce skills.

How current must benchmark data be?

Within twelve months, and less in a fast-moving market. Stale benchmarks systematically understate pay in a tightening labour market.