The Market Salary Search is TalentUp’s core benchmarking tool. It gives you the current market salary for any job role in any location, filtered to match your company’s specific profile. Use it when setting a salary for a new hire, preparing a compensation offer, validating your pay ranges, or exploring what different markets pay for roles you are planning to hire.
How to Perform a Search
Fill in two required fields in the search panel on the left:
- Position: type a job title such as “Frontend Developer”, “Data Scientist”, or “Marketing Manager”. TalentUp will suggest matching roles from its database as you type. You can also enable Match description to search using a free-text job description instead of a title, which is useful for hybrid or non-standard roles.
- Location: enter a city or country such as “Barcelona”, “United Kingdom”, or “Dubai”. The benchmark will reflect compensation in that specific talent market.
Click Search to generate the benchmark report.
Refining Your Search with Filters
The Filters panel below the search button narrows the benchmark to companies that match your organization’s profile. These are pre-populated from your Company Settings but can be adjusted for any individual search. Changing filters here does not affect your global Company Settings.
Click Apply after adjusting filters to refresh the results. Well-configured filters are important: they ensure you are comparing against companies your candidates actually consider, not the entire market.
Reading the Benchmark Result
The right-hand panel shows the full benchmark report once your search is complete. Each section gives you a different perspective on the data:
Total Market Compensation
The headline figure is the current market salary for the role and location at the selected percentile. Use the controls to adjust what you see:
- Median / Mean: switch between the midpoint and the average of the dataset
- Percentile selector: view the salary at P10, P25, P50, P75, or P90 to position your offer relative to the market
The bar below the headline shows the split between Base Salary and Average Stock Options, giving you a view of total compensation rather than just cash.
Market Balance Indicator
This label reflects current talent supply and demand for the role in this location:
- Balanced Market: supply and demand are in equilibrium, typical hiring conditions apply
- High Demand: more companies are competing for this role than there are available candidates; expect longer time-to-fill and upward salary pressure
- High Supply: more candidates are available than open positions; you have more flexibility on compensation
Pay Table by Level
A breakdown of salary ranges across seniority levels (Junior, Mid, Senior, Lead) at P10, P25, P50, P75, and P90. Toggle between:
- Salary / Bonus / Stock: view each compensation component separately
- Gross / Net: see gross or net figures
- Current Quarter / Historical: use the most recent data or review salary trends over time
Note on Stock values: The Stock figures in TalentUp reflect the market value of equity grants, annualized across the vesting period. This is not a cash allocation to be converted into shares at a later date. It represents the value of the equity grant itself, spread over the vesting schedule. This is the standard methodology used across compensation benchmarking platforms.
Market Insights
Supply and demand metrics and sector comparisons that give you context on how competitive the hiring environment is for this role. Useful when deciding how aggressively to position your salary offer.
Pay Trajectory
A forward-looking view of how salaries for this role are expected to evolve based on market trends. Use this when planning compensation budgets for the year ahead or forecasting the cost of a new hire over time.
Add & Compare
From any benchmark result you can click Add Employee to add this position directly to your Internal Pay Analysis roster, so you do not have to re-enter data manually when you switch between tools.
Search History
Every benchmark you unlock is saved in your Search History, visible in the right-hand panel when no search is active. Click any entry to reload that benchmark instantly. Each history item shows the role, location, active filters, and the date of the search.
Note: unlocking a benchmark consumes credits. Benchmarks already in your search history can be reviewed at any time at no additional cost.
Searching by Department or Category
The Search by tabs at the top of the search panel let you switch from searching by Position (the default) to broader groupings:
- Department: search all roles within a department such as Engineering or Marketing
- Category: search by functional area such as Backend Development or UX Design
- Location: browse all available benchmarks for a given city or country
Common Use Cases
- Setting a competitive offer: search the role and location before extending an offer to confirm your salary is within the market range, reducing the risk of a rejected offer or an overpaid hire
- Validating existing pay ranges: check that your salary bands are still market-aligned, especially in fast-moving sectors like technology where pay can shift significantly quarter to quarter
- Preparing for salary reviews: bring objective market evidence into review cycles so that raise and promotion decisions are grounded in data, not subjective judgment
- Exploring new hiring markets: planning to open a role in a new city or country? Search that location first to understand what competitive pay looks like and factor it into your hiring budget
