Salary Percentile
Your position in the salary distribution, the 75th percentile (p75) means you earn more than 75% of workers in the same role. BLS reports p10, p25, p50, p75, and p90.
Salary Percentile is a term from U.S. wage and occupational data — typically a concept from the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey, the DOL prevailing-wage system, or related employment statistics. The definition here is the practical worker-facing meaning. Understanding Salary Percentile is part of reading wage data defensibly. BLS and DOL conventions can be subtle — survey methodology, reporting thresholds, geographic definitions, and percentile calculations all shape what the headline numbers actually mean.
Each role-and-city page on SalaryTruth surfaces the Salary Percentile-relevant values for that specific combination, so the general definition here translates into concrete numbers on the per-role-and-city pages.
How It Works
Salary percentiles provide a much richer picture than a single median number. BLS reports five percentile points for each occupation and geography: p10 (10th percentile, entry-level or part-time workers), p25 (25th percentile, junior or below-market workers), p50 (50th percentile, the median, representing typical mid-career pay), p75 (75th percentile, experienced workers or premium employers), and p90 (90th percentile, senior experts, high-cost-of-living areas, or top-paying companies). The gap between percentiles reveals how steep the pay curve is. For software developers, the p90/p10 ratio exceeds 3:1, meaning the top 10% earn more than triple the bottom 10%. For registered nurses, the ratio is closer to 2:1, indicating a more compressed pay scale. When negotiating salary, knowing your target percentile is powerful: asking for "above the 75th percentile" is more compelling than asking for an arbitrary number. SalaryTruth shows all five BLS percentile points for every role-city combination to help you understand exactly where a given offer falls in the distribution.
Related Terms
- Median Salary, The middle point of all salaries for a given role, half of workers earn more, half earn less. More useful than average salary because it isn't skewed by extremely high or low earners.
- Mean Salary (Average Salary), The arithmetic average of all salaries for a role, calculated by adding all salaries and dividing by the number of workers. Typically higher than the median because high earners pull the average up.
- Wage Distribution, The full range and spread of salaries for a given occupation, from the lowest earners (p10) to the highest (p90), revealing how pay varies by experience, location, and employer.
Explore Salary Data
About This Definition
This definition is part of the SalaryTruth Salary & Career Glossary, 25 terms explaining compensation, salary data, and career development. All salary data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics OEWS survey.