SQL Query to Find Nth Highest Salary of Employee

To find Nth highest salary is a very common interview question if you are going for the role at junior level. Most of the people learn it character by character, but few understand how this query works. How good or bad its performance is? In this post, we will learn these things. I am using MySQL database for demonstration.

Table of Contents

1. Create the schema and populate table
2. Write the query and verify the result
3. How the query works
4. Performance analysis

1. Create database schema and populate table

Lets create a simple example of Employee table. We will populate this table with id, and and salary of employees. We will write the query to find nth highest salary on this table.

Create a new database schema.

Create schema TestSQL;

Create a new table Employee_Test.

CREATE TABLE Employee_Test
(
    Employee_ID INT,
    Employee_name Varchar(100),
    Employee_Salary Decimal (10,2)
);

Populate the table with test data.

INSERT INTO Employee_Test VALUES (1,'Anish',1000);
INSERT INTO Employee_Test VALUES (2,'Sushant',1200);
INSERT INTO Employee_Test VALUES (3,'Rakesh',1100);
INSERT INTO Employee_Test VALUES (4,'Manoj',1300);
INSERT INTO Employee_Test VALUES (5,'Amit',1400);
INSERT INTO Employee_Test VALUES (6,'Lokesh',1600);
INSERT INTO Employee_Test VALUES (7,'Maneneder',1400);
INSERT INTO Employee_Test VALUES (8,'Narendra',400);
INSERT INTO Employee_Test VALUES (9,'Kaushal',1900);
INSERT INTO Employee_Test VALUES (10,'Vikas',3400);
INSERT INTO Employee_Test VALUES (11,'Sudhir',800);

2. SQL query to find nth highest salary

So as most of us know, query is written like this for finding nth highest salary. In below query we see how to find max salary in sql without using max function.

SELECT *
FROM Employee_Test Emp1
WHERE ( n ) = (
                SELECT COUNT( DISTINCT ( Emp2.Employee_Salary ) )
                FROM Employee_Test Emp2
                WHERE Emp2.Employee_Salary >= Emp1.Employee_Salary
            )

Here, replace the 'n' with any number. For example, if you have to find 6th highest salary , then replace n with 6.

SELECT *
FROM Employee_Test Emp1
WHERE (6) = (
SELECT COUNT( DISTINCT ( Emp2.Employee_Salary ) )
FROM Employee_Test Emp2
WHERE Emp2.Employee_Salary >= Emp1.Employee_Salary
)

Above query will produce below result.

3. How the query works

As we can see this query involves use of an inner query. Inner queries can be of two types. Correlated and uncorrelated queries. Uncorrelated query is where inner query can run independently of outer query, and correlated query is where inner query runs in conjunction to outer query. Our nth highest salary is an example of correlated query.

Lest understand first that the inner query executes every time, a row from outer query is processed. Inner query essentially does not do any very secret job, it only return the count of distinct salaries which are higher than the currently processing row’s salary column. Anytime, it find that salary column’s value of current row from outer query, is equal to count of higher salaries from inner query, it returns the result.

4. Performance analysis

As we learned above that inner query executes every time, one row of outer query is processed, this brings a lot of performance overhead, specially if the number of rows are too big.

To avoid this, one should use DB specific keywords to get the result faster. For example in SQL server, one can use key word TOP like this.

How to find nth highest salary in sql server.

SELECT TOP 1 EMPLOYEE_SALARY
FROM
(
    SELECT DISTINCT TOP N EMPLOYEE_SALARY
    FROM EMPLOYEE_TEST
    ORDER BY EMPLOYEE_SALARY DESC
) A
ORDER BY EMPLOYEE_SALARY
WHERE N > 1

Happy Learning !!

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About Lokesh Gupta

A family guy with fun loving nature. Love computers, programming and solving everyday problems. Find me on Facebook and Twitter.

Feedback, Discussion and Comments

Naveen
January 24, 2020

Very sorry to say that this work only if there are all distinct salaries in the table.
Sangita
December 11, 2019

ORDER BY should be after WHERE clause.
Roopa
March 24, 2018

Please give us pseudo code for Java and nothing from database
Ajay Pandey
September 16, 2014

very nice explanation..
TOP is not working in postgres database so we have to go with DISTINCT.
if any another way is there to find nth highest please do mention.
Ram Krishna Dixit
June 13, 2014

Hi Nice Article,
Just want to mention that in sybase
Getting nth salary using top is not working in sybase
so I have to go with first approach
SELECT *
FROM Employee_Test Emp1
WHERE ( n ) = (
SELECT COUNT( DISTINCT ( Emp2.Employee_Salary ) )
FROM Employee_Test Emp2
WHERE Emp2.Employee_Salary >= Emp1.Employee_Salary
)
- Lokesh Gupta
  June 13, 2014
  
  Thanks for adding your findings.
vijay bhatt
February 13, 2014

/*for 3rd highest salary n=2, for 2nd highest salary n=1, nth highest salary n=n-1*/
SELECT DISTINCT(Salary) FROM employee ORDER BY Salary DESC LIMIT n,1
Neha Insa
November 22, 2013

SELECT first_name FROM tbl_author_master WHERE author_id IN
(SELECT author_id FROM tbl_mpstrak_journal_manuscript_author WHERE manuscript_id IN
(SELECT manuscript_id FROM tbl_mpstrak_journal_manuscript));
convert this sql command in join* sql command::::i m not getting corresponding answer in joins?????
- Neha Insa
  November 22, 2013
  
  i tried it,,, but not getting::::::::::
  SELECT
  am.first_name
  FROM
  tbl_mpstrak_journal_manuscript jms JOIN tbl_mpstrak_journal_manuscript_author msa
  JOIN tbl_author_master am
  WHERE am.author_id =msa.author_id AND jms.manuscript_id=msa.manuscript_id;
  - Neha Insa
    November 22, 2013
    
    i want it wid ON clauses
Shabher
November 15, 2013

how to find out 5th max sal from only one employee table……
- Mohamed Mukhthar
  December 28, 2014
  
  here is common query for any highest salary(nth). for ex if the table name is emp and the column name is sal
  select * from emp
  where sal=(select sal from
  (select sal from(select sal from(select distinct sal from emp order by sal desc)
  where rownum<=n)order by sal)where rownum = 1);
Bobby
July 16, 2013

Wonderful information here. Thank you.
Mithilesh Jha
March 7, 2013

A big thanks for such a nice query 🙂
Manas Mani Tripathi
January 10, 2013

Your query takes more resources. Correct way to wite this query is :
SELECT MIN(SALARY) FROM EMP WHERESALARY IN (SELECT DISTINCT TOP N SALARY FROM EMP ORDER BY SALARY DESC)
- Lokesh Gupta
  January 10, 2013
  
  Manas, if you look at the last section of the post.. similar query is mentioned there.. but problem is .. its database specific. TOP keyword is not supported by all databases.. I proposed a generic query which is supported by all databases.
  - Tanmoy
    February 20, 2014
    
    SELECT TOP 1 EMPLOYEE_SALARY
    FROM
    (
    SELECT DISTINCT TOP N EMPLOYEE_SALARY
    FROM EMPLOYEE_TEST
    ORDER BY EMPLOYEE_SALARY DESC
    ) A
    ORDER BY EMPLOYEE_SALARY
    WHERE N > 1
    This Query is not working in my database. It gives error in SQL* Plus like
    SELECT TOP 1 EMPLOYEE_SALARY
    *
    ERROR at line 1:
    ORA-00923: FROM keyword not found where expected
    Please suggest me some solution.
  - Ravi RANAJAN
    May 29, 2014
    
    why top keyword is not supported by all database????????..
    - Lokesh Gupta
      May 29, 2014
      
      Can’t answer on behalf of all database vendors.. 😉
    - Mohamed Mukhthar
      December 28, 2014
      
      Each and every Query language (SQL*plus,t-sql,win-sql) were inherited from ANSI SQL .So 70% of all sql languages are similar except these(top,etc) which is patented by microsoft (MS-SQL-SERVER). These are extended features of particular language.

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