Median Annual Salary

Median Annual Salary – HR Metric – calculation

What (Definition)

Median annual Salary is the median of actual salaries of current employees. This is based on the annual salary agreed with the employee and not the salary paid to employee so far.

Why (Benefits)

Median Salary is a good indicator of how the employees’ salaries are distributed. It is usually helpful to know median salary within a specific salary grade or pay grade. Jobs are usually assigned a specific salary grade and each grade has a minimum, midpoint and maximum salaries as guidelines. This actual median salary can be compared to the midpoint salary set for the specific grade to ensure that the policy guidelines are followed.

How (Calculation)

Formula: Median of Actual Annual Salaries of Employees

If we have a list of employees and their salaries, we can calculate the median.

Median Annual Salary Calculation using example data

To understand how median calculation works, it is better to show the employee salary sorted by salary amount.

If we had 11 employees sorted by their salary amount, then salary of 6th employee in that order will be the median, as it represents the middle.

In our dataset, we have 10 employees and there is no natural midpoint. So, we take the average of 5th and 6th salaries.

Median Calculation – Median Annual Salary

In this example dataset, the median salary is $55,113 which is the average of $47016 (5th salary) and $63210 (6th Salary)

As mentioned earlier, the metric is useful when segmented by job grade. If the job grades are A, B, C and D, we can calculate the median salary for each grade.

Let’s look at this chart below.

Median Salary by Job grade


While using median or average metrics, it is recommended that we also see the frequency distribution.

This is where we create groups or buckets of salaries and calculate the frequency.

Salary Distribution

In this chart above, we can see the number of employees in each salary band/bucket. 3 employees have salaries between 20001 and 35000. This analysis allows us to see which salary buckets the concentration of employees is and will reveal outliers if any.

Related Products

  • Human Resources Toolkit Excel Templates

Get automated HR metrics for your company with our templates
(Available in 3 platforms: Microsoft Power BI, Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel)

  • Human Resources Toolkit Excel Templates

Related Posts

HR Metric - Applications per Open Position

Applications Per Open Position

Gain insights into ‘Applications per Open Position’, a crucial HR metric, to understand recruitment demand and optimize hiring strategies. A key metric for HR professionals aiming to balance candidate influx with open job positions efficiently.

Read More »
HR Metric - Pending Applications

Pending Applications

Discover the significance of ‘Pending Applications’ in HR metrics; learn why tracking them is key for recruitment efficiency and how to manage them effectively.

Read More »

Now it’s your turn.

Do you measure the number of applications reaching a stage during the hiring period in your company? Please share your thoughts on how you do it below. We would like to hear from your experience.

To learn more about other recruiting metrics please visit HR Guides