What is TalentUp
TalentUp is a salary-benchmarking platform built for HR, Compensation, and Benefits teams. It exists to answer the question every people team eventually runs into: is what we pay competitive, fair, and defensible, and how do we actually know that instead of guessing?
How it works
At its core, the platform brings together two things: real market salary data, compiled from compensation reported across many companies, positions, and locations, and your own company's employee data, imported from a spreadsheet or synced from an HRIS. Neither one on its own answers the question. Market data alone tells you what the market pays; your own payroll data alone tells you what you pay. Only by combining them can TalentUp show you how the two compare, role by role and person by person, and flag where they drift apart.
Two sides of one platform
The internal facing side of the platform, including Employees, Insights, Grading, Salary Bands, and Job Level Evaluation, turns that same market data into a working compensation structure for your own company: a leveling framework every role is graded against, salary bands built from that framework, and a live view of where each employee sits relative to those bands, their compa-ratio, and any pay equity risk that needs attention.
The market facing side of the platform, including Search Salaries, Compare Salaries, Company Finder, and Benchmark Comparison, is where you look up competitive pay before making an offer, opening a role, or planning next year's compensation budget. Results are broken down into percentiles (P10 through P90) by seniority level, location, sector, and company type, and can be converted between gross, net, company cost, and contractor pay.
Both sides share one account and one plan (Free, Pro, or Premium, see Plans and credits below), so a market check, a hiring decision, and a pay equity review can all be done from the same underlying data, instead of juggling numbers exported into spreadsheets that quietly drift out of sync with each other.
Built with compliance in mind
TalentUp is also built with compliance in mind. The EU Pay Transparency Directive (Directive (EU) 2023/970) requires employers across the European Union to disclose pay information, report on gender pay gaps, and justify pay differences between employees doing equal work or work of equal value. Insights already surfaces the gender pay gap and pay equity metrics that this kind of reporting depends on, and Salary Bands gives you the documented structure that regulators and employees alike will expect to see. For country by country legal status, deadlines, and obligations, TalentUp also maintains a dedicated Pay Transparency Hub.
What this means for your team
In practice, that means TalentUp can help HR, Compensation, and Benefits professionals in very concrete ways: setting a competitive, market backed offer before losing a candidate to a counteroffer, running an annual compensation review without exporting data into a dozen spreadsheets, catching pay equity risks (such as two people doing the same job for meaningfully different pay) before they become a legal or reputational problem, and building salary bands and a leveling framework that survive an audit or an employee question, because every number can be traced back to real market data.
Every number you see in the app is explained in this documentation, organized the same way as the left-hand menu, so you can look things up while you work: a market percentile, a compa-ratio, a band status.
TalentUp Coverage
Before you search, it helps to know how broad TalentUp's underlying data actually is. Coverage grows every day as new sources are added and TalentUp's own users contribute data, so treat these as a live snapshot of what TalentUp currently covers, not a fixed ceiling.
- Roles: close to 800 distinct, benchmarkable positions, each with its own description. Browse the full list, grouped by department, on the Job Catalog page.
- Countries: salary data across 98 countries.
- Cities: coverage reaches over 38,000 cities, so results can usually be narrowed down to the exact city a role is based in rather than just a country or region.
- Departments: every role is organized into one of 22 departments, from Engineering and Sales to Finance and Human Resources, the same grouping used on the Job Catalog page.
- Companies: data draws on more than 5 million companies, from early-stage startups to large multinationals.
Methodology and Data Science
Understanding how TalentUp's data is built helps you use it with confidence. This section explains where the salary data comes from, how it's processed, and what the Confidence Ratio means when you're reading a benchmark result.
Where the data comes from
TalentUp collects compensation data from three complementary sources, giving the platform a broad and representative view of the job market:
- 72% Job boards: the majority of TalentUp's data comes from hundreds of public job portals, scraped daily to capture job descriptions, salary offers, location, benefits, and company metadata. This provides a real time pulse on what companies are actively offering in the market.
- 17% Employee submitted profiles on TalentUp.io: employees voluntarily submit their compensation details through the TalentUp platform. Each submission is validated by comparing it against similar roles, companies, and locations to ensure accuracy and relevance.
- 11% HR datasets from client companies: TalentUp clients can upload anonymized internal compensation data via Excel templates or HRIS integrations. This data is included only if it was collected in the current year, keeping the dataset fresh and reliable.
The four step data process
Every data point goes through a four step pipeline before it's used in a benchmark: Collection, Normalization, Deduplication, and Validation.
1. Collection. TalentUp collects over 20,000 new salary data points per day from 300+ sources across 70+ countries and 600+ job roles. Beyond salaries, the platform captures bonuses, job descriptions, company information, and benefits, giving each benchmark richer context.
2. Normalization. Raw data from different geographies and sources is standardized so it can be compared meaningfully, across three areas:
- Currency conversion: salaries from international sources are converted using daily exchange rates.
- Job title translation: TalentUp's taxonomy maps over 32,000 roles across multiple languages, so the same position is interpreted consistently regardless of how it was titled in the source.
- Benefit standardization: common benefits such as health insurance, remote work, and stock options are normalized even when described differently across sources.
This makes it possible to compare a Software Engineer in São Paulo with the same role in Berlin or Toronto on a like for like basis.
3. Deduplication. Duplicate listings and repeated job offers are filtered out using natural language processing (NLP) algorithms that detect semantic similarities in job descriptions and employer metadata, so every data point is unique and the final benchmark isn't inflated or skewed.
4. Validation. Both automated checks and manual reviews are applied before a benchmark is published:
- Benchmark comparison: a sudden change in a benchmark, for example a 20% salary increase for a single city-role combination, triggers an automatic flag for further review.
- Sample size threshold: a minimum of 30 data points per position and location is required before a benchmark is published, to keep it statistically reliable.
- Manual cross-check: significant deviations from historical benchmarks or industry standards are reviewed manually and cross-verified with partner sources.
All benchmarks are refreshed every one to two months, so the data you see reflects current market conditions.
Predictive modeling
For roles, locations, or seniority levels where collected data is sparse, TalentUp uses predictive analytics to fill gaps and maintain continuous coverage without sacrificing reliability.
- Linear regression models: salary trends are estimated based on seniority and experience using regression models tuned to reflect realistic career compensation growth.
- Correlation across similar markets: when direct data isn't available for a given city, TalentUp estimates benchmarks by drawing on correlations with similar locations, industries, or company sizes, keeping coverage reliable even in less data rich regions.
- Data completion: predictive modeling lets TalentUp provide complete salary ranges, from base pay to bonuses, even when only partial source data exists, for a consistent experience across every role and location.
Confidence Ratio
Every benchmark in TalentUp includes a Confidence Ratio, a score from 0 to 1 that tells you how reliable that specific data point is, calculated from three factors: sample size (how many data points underlie the benchmark), distribution quality (how consistent the reported salaries are with each other), and data freshness (how recently the data was collected).
Use this score to calibrate how much weight to put on a benchmark when making compensation decisions:
- 0.8 to 1.0: highly reliable; use with confidence for formal decisions such as salary bands or offer setting.
- 0.6 to 0.8: solid and trustworthy; suitable for most benchmarking purposes.
- Below 0.6: useful as a directional guide, but treat with some caution and consider supplementing with additional context.
Plans and credits
TalentUp offers three plans: Free, Pro, and Premium. Each one raises the ceiling on how many positions you can unlock, how many employees you can manage, and which features (Peer Groups, custom grading, Job Level Evaluation) are switched on. Your current plan and available credits are always shown on the Dashboard.
- Free: one seat, one full benchmark unlock for life, and search limited to a single position at a time. Manage up to 10 employees and run the Pay Transparency Compliance Tool for up to 10 employees, so a small team can get real value before paying anything.
- Pro: €60/month, billed monthly, cancellable anytime. Includes 1 credit every month, plus up to 1,500 more credits you can buy whenever you need them. Raises the employee ceiling to 25 for both benchmarking and the Pay Transparency Compliance Tool, unlocks competitor analysis and benchmark data from other grading providers such as Korn Ferry, Mercer, Radford, and WTW, and is the first plan that can build a personalized grading framework of its own.
- Premium: TalentUp's custom, sales assisted plan for larger organizations. Unlimited seats, full benchmarks, and employees, with search by position, category, department, or location instead of position alone. Unlocks Peer Groups, Job Level Evaluation, and priority support on top of everything Pro includes. Pricing is tailored to your company, so getting on Premium means talking to the TalentUp team rather than checking out online.
A credit is what unlocks one full benchmark: a specific position and location combination, with every seniority level and percentile fully visible instead of blurred. Using a credit unlocks that search for one year from the moment you spend it; after that year it locks again unless you spend another credit on it. Credits you haven't used yet, and the benchmarks you've already unlocked, are both listed on the Dashboard so you always know what you have left and what you already paid for.
Throughout this documentation, any feature that isn't available on every plan carries a small badge, like the ones on Job Level Evaluation and Peer Groups, so you can tell at a glance whether something is within reach on your current plan or would mean moving up to Premium.
Dashboard
The Dashboard is your account and your company's shared benchmarking hub. Everyone on your team who logs in sees the same Dashboard, tied to your company rather than to any one person, so credits, unlocked benchmarks, and saved searches are shared across the whole team instead of being siloed per user.
If you're on the Free or Pro plan, three cards sit at the top. Credits Available shows how many credits you have left and lets you jump straight to Search Salaries or buy more. Employee Positions Available shows how many of your employee slots are used, for example 8/25, and lets you add an employee or connect an HRIS integration. A third card nudges you toward upgrading, with copy that adapts to your plan. Premium companies have unlimited everything, so these three cards don't show at all, the page goes straight to Company settings.
Company settings holds two cards you can click to open a settings panel. Fixed Filters lets you set a default sector, company type, employee count range, funding range, revenue range, up to 5 keywords, and, on Premium, a default Peer Group, all applied automatically to both your employee data and your benchmark searches. Salary View lets you set the default pay frequency (yearly, monthly, weekly, daily, or hourly) and compensation type (gross, net, company cost, or contractor) everyone on your team sees by default. Grading is no longer set here: it now has its own dedicated Grading page in the left menu.
Below that sits your company's shared space: four tabs your whole team works from together.
- Members: your team roster, with each person's name, position, department, location, and role (Owner, Admin, or Manager). Owners and Admins can invite new teammates by email and assign them a role; inviting a Manager also lets you assign which employees they're responsible for, either individually or through a saved rule.
- Unlocked Benchmarks: every position and location search your team has spent a credit on, with who unlocked it, the filters that were applied, and its expiration date. An unlocked benchmark can be reopened any time before it expires with View, or shared with a teammate via Share; once it expires, reopening it costs another credit.
- Saved Benchmarks: searches your team bookmarked from the results page for later, whether or not they were ever unlocked. Each one can be reopened, shared, or removed, and rerunning a saved search with different filters asks whether to update it or save it as a new benchmark.
- Downloads: the status of every Excel report your team has requested, moving from Pending to Processing to Ready as it's generated in the background. A finished report can be downloaded or deleted; if one fails, a Try again button retries it.
Example
These three cards only show on the Free and Pro plans; Premium skips straight to Company settings.
My Compensation
My Compensation is a personal, company-internal pay page for one specific employee: their own total compensation, their own career path within the company, and how their pay compares to colleagues at their own level, all drawn from the same employee data you manage on Employees. It's deliberately different from every other page in this section: there's no market percentile, no external benchmark, and no compa-ratio here, only how that person's pay compares inside your own company.
There are two ways into the same page. An employee who's been granted their own login sees their own My Compensation, and only their own, every time they sign in. A company user (Owner, Admin, Manager, Member, or Team member) sees it too, but as a preview: the first visit asks which employee record is theirs, or it can be opened for any employee directly from that person's profile on Employees, with a Grant Access button that invites them to create their own login and start seeing this page themselves.
Reading the page
- The header card shows the employee's name, position, level badge, and location, with a collapsible panel underneath for their Job Description and Level Description.
- Annual total compensation is one headline number, broken into a stacked bar of base salary, bonus, and, when they apply, variable pay and benefits, each labeled underneath with its own amount.
- Career path within [company] is a timeline built from the employee's own work history: when they joined, every promotion (shown as an old level → new level badge), and every salary increase, newest first.
- Gender gap in [company] and Gender gap in your level are two donut charts showing the male/female split company-wide and among only the employee's own-level colleagues.
- Pay gap in your level compares the mean pay of male and female employees at that same level as two bars, with a red segment marking exactly how far the employee's own salary sits from the mean of their own gender at their level.
A Download PDF button turns the whole page into a compensation statement the employee can keep. In preview mode, a company user also sees a Back to employees link next to it; a company user viewing their own self-selected page instead sees a small Is this not you? link to clear that selection and pick a different employee record.
Granting an employee their own login is different from adding them to your team: it creates a separate account, with the employee role rather than Owner, Admin, Manager, or Member, that only ever shows this one page, so the employee can check their own pay themselves without being given access to anything else in TalentUp.
Example
Annual total compensation
€58,400
12 pays | Full-time (40 hours per week)
Base salary €37,400
Bonus €10,500
Variable pay €5,800
Benefits €4,700
Career path within Acme Technologies
15/03/2026
Promoted Mid → Senior
02/06/2022
Hired as Product Designer
Gender gap in Acme Technologies
Male 43%
18 Employees
Female 57%
24 Employees
Gender gap in your level
Male 60%
3 Employees
Female 40%
2 Employees
Pay gap in your level
Mean Male Pay €54,800 Yearly
Mean Female Pay €48,200 Yearly
Gap in your salary €6,600 Yearly
Employees
The Employees page is your company's benchmarking roster: every employee you've added, each one compared automatically against market data for their position, location, and level. It's the only page that shows an employee's full market salary range alongside their actual pay, so you can see at a glance where they sit.
Reading the table
- Employee: name and position, with an avatar.
- Level: their seniority, shown as a colored pill from your active grading.
- Location: city and country.
- Base Salary: their salary, with the market-position badge shown directly underneath it: Below market, In market, Above market, or Benchmark unavailable (see Reading band status under Key concepts).
- Labels: employment status (Active, Below-market pay, or Dismissed), plus Access Granted, Missing data, and Unequal pay flags whenever they apply.
- Actions: Unlock (spends a credit) if that position and location aren't unlocked yet, or View benchmark once they are.
Filtering the table
The filter panel on the left narrows the table by Name or ID, Position, Entity, Department, Location, Level, a Salary range slider, and Label. Label is the useful one for cleanup work: it isolates exactly the employees flagged with Below-market pay, Unequal pay, Gender gap, Bonus gap, or Missing data, so you can work through one risk category at a time instead of scanning the whole table.
Adding employees
- Add employee opens a 3-step form: identity and department in step one, position, level, salary, and benefits in step two, and previous experience in step three.
- Import employees lets you download the Excel template, fill it in, and drag it back in to add many employees at once.
- Data integration, from the same menu, requests a connection to your HRIS (AlexisHR, BambooHR, Personio, Workday, or HiBob) so employees sync automatically instead of being uploaded by hand.
Managing an employee record
Clicking anywhere on a row opens that employee's full profile: their details, a Risks tab when they're flagged for retention concerns, and buttons to edit their record, grant or manage their employee self-service access, or view their market benchmark. Selecting several rows with the checkboxes switches on an Options menu for bulk actions: copy or move employees between lists, remove them from a list, assign them to a manager (Owners and Admins only), or delete them. The tabs above the table let you organize employees into your own lists, beyond the default All employees view.
Below-market pay and Unequal pay are the two flags that follow an employee everywhere: as a badge in the Labels column, as a filter in the sidebar, and as a line of explanation inside their profile's Risks tab, so the same signal is never presented two different ways.
Example
Filter by Label
| Employee | Level | Location | Base Salary | Labels | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
JD
Jamie Devi
Senior Product Designer
|
Senior |
Madrid
Spain
|
€68,000
In market
|
Active | View benchmark |
|
PS
Priya Shah
Backend Engineer
|
Mid |
London
United Kingdom
|
£52,000
Below market
|
Below-market pay | View benchmark |
|
MK
Marcus Klein
Data Analyst
|
Junior |
Berlin
Germany
|
€41,500
Benchmark unavailable
|
Missing data
Unequal pay
|
Unlock 1 Credit |
Insights
Insights turns the same employee data from the Employees page into company-wide analytics: pay statistics, workforce risk, and gender pay gap, refreshed automatically as you add or update employees. Where Employees shows you one person at a time, Insights shows you the whole picture.
What's on the page
- Risks detected is a plain-language summary at the top of the page, shown only when something needs attention, with a Manage employees at risk button that links straight to the people behind it.
- Pay statistics shows mean and median pay for everyone, and again split by gender, each compared against the sector average.
- Workforce risk analysis is the compact summary card: how many employees have enough data to be analyzed, what share of them are Stable versus At risk, and three tiles for average compa-ratio, average tenure, and turnover, which only appear once they cross a concerning threshold.
- Gender gap, Variable pay by gender, General gender pay gap, Pay gap insights, Tenure distribution, and Pay gap per level are a set of charts breaking the same data down by gender, level, and tenure, so you can see not just that a gap exists, but where it concentrates.
Reading the risk numbers
Three of the rows in Workforce risk analysis are clickable: Below-market pay, Missing data, and Gender gap each open a list of exactly the employees behind that number, with a link straight to their profile. The other risk signals TalentUp calculates, unequal pay and benchmark unavailable, still count toward Stable/At risk and the sector comparisons, but on this page they surface through the Employees page's Label filter and the Risks tab in an employee's own profile rather than through a row of their own here.
Turnover here is year to date: the share of your current headcount who left this calendar year. Compa-ratio is the same median measure used everywhere else in the platform (see Compa-ratio under Key concepts), just aggregated across your whole team instead of one employee.
Filtering and exporting
Filters are hidden by default. Add filter opens the same sidebar as Employees (position, department, level, location, salary range, and Label), and every chart on the page updates live once you apply one. Generate report exports the current view to Excel, and Adjust Criteria lets you decide which factors, like performance or tenure, should be allowed to justify part of a pay gap before it counts as unexplained in Pay gap insights.
Example
Risks detected
Pay statistics
€54,200
€51,900
€51,800
€50,200
€56,100
€53,400
Workforce risk analysis
Gender gap
Gender gap
BalancedVariable pay by gender
General gender pay gap
Paygap > 5%Pay gap insights
UnjustifiedTenure distribution
Pay gap per level (quartiles)
Pay gap per job level
Pay gap per job level
Base SalaryGrading
Grading is where you browse, and choose, the leveling framework the rest of the platform grades your employees and market searches against. Every system framework's full level list is there to browse, whether or not you're the one who can activate it.
The dropdown at the top lists every system framework, TalentUp Seniority, TalentUp Levels, Gradar, Korn Ferry, Mercer, Radford, WTW Career Level, WTW Global Grade, plus Personalized Levels, with a checkmark next to whichever one is currently your company's default. Picking a different one just previews its levels; nothing changes company-wide until you click Set as default. Frameworks vary a lot in size: TalentUp Seniority has 5 levels, Gradar has 19 numbered levels, Korn Ferry runs from grade 04 up to 99. Each level shows a short description you can expand for more (impact, expertise, complexity, scope of work, leadership, whenever those are defined).
- Start Now begins a Personalized Levels framework: Add a level with a code (like P1), an optional category, a title, and a description of scope and responsibilities, then repeat for every level you need.
- Levels can be dragged to reorder, within a category or between categories, and each one can be mapped to up to two equivalent TalentUp levels, so market data still matches even though the level names are entirely your own.
- Once you have a personalized framework, Edit reopens it for changes, and Save or Cancel commit or discard everything you touched in that session.
Building a Personalized Levels framework, and setting any framework as your company's default, both require a Pro or Premium plan. On Free, you can still browse every system framework's levels, but the Personalized Levels tab shows an upgrade prompt instead of a builder, and Set as default is disabled.
Whatever you set here is what shows in the Level column on Employees, what Salary Bands draws one band per, and what Search Salaries and every other market search converts its raw seniority data into.
Example
Personalized Levels
Salary Bands
Salary Bands draws one band per grading level, with your employees plotted on it as dots, so you can see at a glance who's paid below, within, or above the range for their level.
Each band shows a minimum, a midpoint, and a maximum. Employees appear as small dots positioned by their salary: navy for in band, red for below the minimum, teal for above the maximum, and a hollow gray dot on levels without enough market data to draw a band at all. Employees paid close together cluster into a numbered circle instead of overlapping; hovering any dot or cluster shows that employee's name, level, position, salary, status, and compa-ratio, calculated against that band's own midpoint rather than the market-wide compa-ratio used on Insights and Benchmark Comparison, without needing to click through anywhere.
- Compensation type switches every band between base salary and total compensation (base plus bonus and stock).
- Midpoint is the market percentile a band is centered on, P10 through P90, P50 by default, or you can fix it to a number of your own.
- Band spread sets how far the minimum and maximum sit from the midpoint, from 10% to 30%, 20% by default.
- Compare against narrows the market data a band is built from by sector, company type, headcount, funding, or revenue, the same filters available on Search Salaries.
These settings apply company-wide by default, but every level also has its own gear icon to override just that level; changing the general settings afterward asks whether to keep those per-level overrides or apply the change everywhere.
Beyond the default view of everyone, you can save a named salary band as a reusable slice: pick an entity, location, department, or level to filter to, and optionally give that slice its own Compensation type, Midpoint, and Band spread instead of the company defaults. Saved bands show up as tabs above the chart and can be edited or deleted at any time.
Two banners can appear above the chart. One warns when your employees span more than one location, department, or currency, since a single band can blur together numbers that shouldn't really be compared. The other warns when some employees sit on a level outside your active grading, since those employees are left out of every band until their level is fixed, with a link straight back to Employees to update them.
Unlike most other pages, Salary Bands has no Excel export or share link. It's a live, in-app view only.
Example
Settings
Compensation type
Midpoint
The percentile you choose becomes the midpoint of your band, calculated from TalentUp market data for each level.
Band spread
Job Level Evaluation
Job Level Evaluation levels a role before anyone has been hired into it yet. Paste in a draft job description, drop a file onto the box, or attach one, choose a grading framework, and an AI assistant reads the text against that framework's own level definitions, the same ones your Grading page stores, never a generic list, so the level it suggests is one you can actually use on Employees and Salary Bands right away.
This is a short conversation, not a single lookup. If the description doesn't say enough about scope of influence, whether the role manages people, or seniority and years of experience, the assistant asks one short clarifying question at a time, up to two questions in total. After that it commits to a result using its best estimate, lowering the confidence score rather than asking indefinitely.
What you can evaluate against
- Framework offers TalentUp Seniority, TalentUp Levels, and your company's own personalized grading when you've built one; the third-party frameworks available on Grading (Gradar, Korn Ferry, Mercer, Radford, WTW) aren't offered here, since TalentUp only has rights to evaluate against its own level definitions.
- Attachments accept a .txt, .md, .docx or .pdf file up to 5 MB; the text is extracted straight into the box so you can review or edit it before evaluating, exactly as if you'd pasted it yourself.
Reading the result
The result is a card with a level badge, a one-sentence summary of what that level does, and a short Why this level list explaining the reasoning, including why the adjacent levels don't fit as well. The confidence score (0 to 100) is the assistant's own certainty about the match, not a statistical measure; treat a low score as a signal to review the level yourself, in particular by asking a follow-up question in the same conversation, rather than accepting it as final.
Acting on a result
From that result card, View benchmark opens Search Salaries pre-filled with the detected job title and, when it can be resolved, your own location, so you can immediately see what the market pays for that level. Add as employee opens the Add Employee form in place, pre-filled with the detected position and level, so a role that has just been leveled can be turned into a real headcount entry without leaving the page or re-typing anything.
Every completed evaluation is saved to Recent evaluations on the landing screen, so a role you leveled last week is one click away to review again or continue the conversation with a follow-up question.
This is where a compensation team can answer what level a new role should be in minutes instead of waiting for the next calibration session, whether the role comes from a hiring plan, a reorg, or a request from another department. Keeping every new role's level grounded in the same framework your existing employees are graded against matters beyond internal consistency: under the EU Pay Transparency Directive, comparable-work analysis and gap reporting depend on a job architecture that doesn't drift over time, and a role leveled ad hoc, outside the framework, is exactly the kind of gap an audit or a works council would flag.
Example
Growth Marketing Manager — own paid acquisition across Google and Meta, set the channel budget, and manage one Paid Media Specialist who reports to this role. Reports to the Head of Marketing. Requirements: 5+ years of paid media experience.
Does this role have full autonomy over the budget it manages, or does spend above a certain amount need sign-off from the Head of Marketing?
Based on what you described, I would suggest you position this role:
Owns a marketing sub-function with a small team, working within a broader strategy set by senior leadership.
Why this level:
- Manages one direct report and has partial budget authority, beyond an individual-contributor level.
- Spend above €20k requires sign-off and scope is limited to one channel area, rather than full P&L ownership of the marketing function.
Search Salaries
Search Salaries is the core market-data search behind the whole platform: pick a position and a location and get back salary percentiles by seniority level, a bonus and stock breakdown, and a full benefits benchmark, all for that exact combination. Three things make up the page: the search form that defines what you're looking for, the pay table that shows what the market pays, and the benefits section that shows what the market offers beyond salary.
The search form
Searching works in one of four mutually exclusive modes, switched with the Search by toggle: Position is the default and always available; Department, Category and Location (searching every position in a place at once) are Premium features. Position search is an autocomplete box, so you can also click Match description next to it to paste a job description instead of typing a title and let TalentUp match it to the closest real position for you.
Location is a single place, matched against a real list of cities and countries as you type; there is no remote or anywhere option, since the market data itself is always tied to a specific place. Personal accounts have their position and location locked to what they entered at signup, so the benchmark always reflects their own profile rather than a place they don't actually work.
- Sector and Keywords narrow the companies behind the data by industry or by free-text terms (up to 5 of each).
- Company type picks one of Startup, Scaleup, International, IT Consultancy or Research / SMB.
- Number of employees, Funding and Revenue are range sliders that narrow the market data to companies of a similar size or stage.
- Peer group narrows results to a named set of companies you chose yourself, rather than a size or industry bucket; it's a Premium feature, built from the Company Finder page, and only usable once a group has at least 5 companies in it.
The Premium plan also gets an AI-powered search box: describe what you're looking for in a sentence, in any language, for example how much a Frontend Developer earns in Barcelona for startups with 20 employees, and TalentUp reads it and detects the position, location and filters for you. Nothing runs automatically: the detected filters appear as removable chips for you to check, with an Edit button to go back to plain text and a Search button that only then runs the actual search.
Running a position or department search that isn't in your history yet uses 1 credit, shown next to the Search button when it applies; your remaining credits are always visible on the Dashboard. Every past search is kept under the Search History tab next to the filters, one click away to reopen, and once you're viewing a result, a Save benchmark button lets a company account keep it as a named, reusable benchmark it can come back to and keep in sync with the filters used to build it.
Example
Search by
Position*
Match descriptionLocation*
Salary Range Results
Frontend Developer in Barcelona
Sector
Company type
Keywords
Number of employees
Funding (€)
Peer group
Search and filter instantly with AI
Reading the results table
The pay table has up to three tabs: Salary (always available), Bonus and Stock (Premium, and only shown at all when that position actually tends to offer them). Each tab lists one row per seniority level with five columns, P10, P25, P50 (the median), P75 and P90, or Min, Avg, Max instead when there isn't enough data for a full percentile spread. A level with more than one experience bracket expands into a breakdown by years of experience; switching the grading dropdown swaps which leveling framework labels the rows, the same frameworks offered on Grading and Job Level Evaluation.
Four controls change how the same numbers are displayed without changing what they mean: compensation basis (Gross, Net, Company Costs or Contractor) switches instantly since all four are already loaded; period (yearly, monthly, weekly or hourly), currency and the historical date range (from three years ago up to a projected next year) each reload the page with the converted or recalculated figures, since those depend on exchange rates and time-based data that live on the server.
A position and location combination you haven't searched before shows dashes instead of numbers until you spend 1 credit to unlock it; once unlocked, it's saved to your profile for future reference and stays unlocked for you from then on. The blue market compensation card above the table turns the row you're most interested in into one headline number, split into a base, bonus and stock bar when those apply, and a Market Analysis card underneath, marked AI Generated, adds a short written summary of what's driving that number.
- An Excel export and a Save benchmark button (company accounts) let you take the current view with you or keep it as a reusable, named benchmark.
- The Add & Compare card lets a company add one of its own employees straight from the results, showing immediately how that person's pay sits against the percentile you're looking at.
- Personal accounts see an Export data option instead, generating a certified Salary Benchmark Certificate PDF with the percentile ranges, bonus and stock data, and the filters used, useful for salary negotiations or as supporting documentation.
Example
Market Analysis
AI GeneratedFrontend Developer salaries in Barcelona sit close to the national average, with the widest gap between Junior and Mid driven by demand for React experience…
Total Yearly Market Compensation
Good48,500 €
Pay table
TalentUp (Seniority) grading | Gross Salary, Yearly | N° of observations: 1016
Benchmark participants
Companies whose employees contributed to this benchmark
Benefits
Below the pay table, the Benefits section shows what companies matching your search tend to offer beyond salary, grouped into cards by category: work-life balance, health and well-being, financial benefits, technology and equipment, professional benefits, transportation and others. Every benefit is curated and filtered to your exact position and location, not a generic list, so what you see is what's actually relevant to that search.
Each benefit expands to show a short description and, when it applies, a value badge: a monetary amount, a percentage of salary, Non monetary, or Variable. A separate gray Statutory benefit pill marks entitlements that are required by local law rather than offered at a company's discretion, such as paid leave, kept in its own cards so legal minimums are never confused with optional perks a company chooses to offer on top. Since contractor rates don't come with company benefits, the whole section is hidden automatically when you switch the pay table to the Contractor basis.
Example
Work life balance
5 extra paid days on top of the statutory minimum, usable at any point in the year.
Health & well being benefits
Financial benefits
Search Salaries is usually the first stop for building a role's compensation, but it also feeds directly into pay equity work: the same percentile ranges and benefits benchmark are what a compensation team leans on when setting a pay range to publish in a job posting or when preparing the comparable-work analysis the EU Pay Transparency Directive asks for, since both need a defensible, up-to-date view of what the market actually pays for a role, not just what the company has paid for it historically.
Benchmark Comparison
Benchmark Comparison is a single table where every position you've unlocked or saved from Search Salaries lands automatically, side by side, so you never have to flip between separate searches to compare roles. You can also bring in a brand-new position without leaving the page: + Add Row opens the same position and location search as Search Salaries, and once you pick both, the row prices itself in place, spending a credit and saving it to your profile if it's not unlocked yet, exactly like unlocking from Search Salaries would.
Every cell in a row, not just the salary, is editable in place: Level, Sector, Company type, the Employees, Funding and Revenue ranges, and Keywords are all dropdowns or inputs you can change directly in the table. Edits save automatically a few seconds after you stop, or immediately if you click away, and the row's Compa and Market P10-P90 columns recompute right after, so this doubles as a live what-if tool: reshape a row's filters and watch the market numbers move, without ever leaving the table or spending another credit.
Salary is the number you type in, typically what you actually pay someone in that role, and Compa is that salary divided by the market median (P50) for the row's exact filters, shown as a percentage; 100 means paying exactly the median. If a row's filters are narrow enough that there's no market data for that precise combination, TalentUp automatically retries with broader ones, dropping funding and company size, then narrowing to sector alone, then no filters at all, until it finds real data rather than leaving the row blank.
- Table settings sets defaults for the whole table at once: Salary (base only, or base plus bonus), Currency, and Salary basis (the pay period, yearly through hourly); each column also has its own override there (Sector, Company type, Employees, Funding) that applies that one value to every row in a single click, without losing anything you've already customized per row afterward.
- The search box filters which rows are shown, and the download icon exports the table exactly as it's currently configured, filters and all.
- Column headers sort the table, and Table settings also lets you show or hide whole columns you don't need for a given comparison.
This is the page to reach for when a decision depends on comparing several roles at once rather than one at a time: benchmarking every open requisition before finalizing offers, checking a handful of roles for pay equity in one pass, or building the comparable-work view the EU Pay Transparency Directive asks for, where several similar positions need to be assessed side by side rather than as isolated searches.
Example
Company Finder
Company Finder works two ways from the same search bar, and the two are mutually exclusive: type a specific company's name to open its own profile, or leave the name empty and use the filters to screen the whole company directory instead. Selecting a company clears any filters, and picking a filter clears the company name, so you're always in one mode or the other, never both at once.
Looking up a single company
The company field is an autocomplete search against TalentUp's real company index, showing each match's logo as you type. Once you open a company, its profile starts with a short written summary (when it was founded, its city and country, its sector, roughly how many employees it has, whether it pays above, around, or under the market average, and its median yearly salary), and a sticky bar with Sector, Employees, Funding, and Revenue badges stays pinned as you scroll so you never lose track of which company you're looking at.
The Average Total Yearly Compensation card puts the company's own median salary on the same bar as its sector's median, so you can see at a glance whether it sits ahead of, level with, or behind similar companies, and a short written note underneath grades exactly how far ahead or behind it is, from broadly in line with the sector to substantially above or below it.
The Offer and Professionals Map is a world map shaded by country, built from two different signals TalentUp already tracks for that company: how many people list it as their employer, and how many job postings it currently has open, in each country. The table underneath the map turns that into a hiring ratio per country and calls out whether the company looks understaffed for its hiring activity (a hiring-heavy, low-supply market) or the opposite.
Positions and salaries is a flat table of individual, real salary data points reported for that company, position by position and city by city, not an aggregated range; a free plan sees the first 3 rows for free and every row after that shows an Upgrade or Login button in place of the number. Last offers published shows up to 3 real job postings TalentUp has found for that company in the last three months, each with a View position button that jumps straight to Search Salaries pre-filled for that exact role and location, and a Job offer button that opens the original posting; on a free plan these are 3 illustrative example cards rather than the company's real postings.
Example
Acme Technologies
Acme Technologies is a company founded in Barcelona, Spain, in 2015. It operates in the Technology sector and has over 200 employees. Acme Technologies offers above-average salaries compared to other companies in the market. The median salary of an employee at Acme Technologies is 52,000 € yearly.
Average Total Yearly Compensation
Good52,000 €
Sector Median vs Company
Salary Variation
Compensation at this company exceeds the sector average, with employees earning around 18% more than similar roles elsewhere in the sector.
Offer and Profesionals Map
Positions and salaries
Last offers published
Backend Developer
In offer 48,000 €Screening the company directory
Leave the company field empty and use Keywords, Location, Sector, Company type (Startup, Scaleup, International, IT Consultancy, or Research / SMB), Number of employees, Funding, Revenue, or a saved Peer Group to screen the whole directory instead of looking up one company. The result is a table, not a hiring feed: each row shows a company's logo and name, sector, size, funding, revenue, location, and a few of its keywords, and the small info button on a row opens that company's own profile exactly as described above, so the directory's real job is helping you find the right company to look up next, or the right set of companies to save as a Peer Group.
Example
Showing 1 to 2 of 42 companies
Building a Peer Group
A Peer Group is a named, reusable set of companies you build yourself, once it has at least 5 companies in it. You can build one two ways on this page: tick the checkboxes on a directory search's result rows and use Add to peer group or + Create peer group, or open the standalone Peer Groups manager from Company Finder's own landing screen and search for companies one at a time to add to a new or existing group. However you build it, a Peer Group then shows up as a one-click filter here on Company Finder, and, on Premium, on Search Salaries too, to narrow market data down to the specific competitor set you actually recruit against or benchmark yourself to.
Company Finder is where the company side of a compensation strategy gets grounded in something concrete: which companies you're actually competing with for talent, and what they pay. That matters beyond internal planning, since the EU Pay Transparency Directive's comparable-work analysis implicitly asks who your company should be measured against in the first place, and a Peer Group built here is exactly that comparison set, reusable everywhere else in TalentUp that accepts one.
Compare Salaries
Compare Salaries puts up to 10 roles across up to 10 locations side by side in one view, everything expressed relative to a single Reference Location you choose, rather than comparing every location to every other one at once. It's a Premium feature end to end: on any other plan, the Compare button on the search form is disabled outright, and the page shows an upgrade prompt instead of results.
Setting up a comparison
Position and Location are separate autocomplete fields, each capped at 10 entries, and Reference Location is its own required field rather than just a toggle on one of the locations you already picked; it's the fixed point every number in both result tables is measured against, marked with a star throughout. Sector, Number of employees, and Funding narrow the underlying market data the same way they do on Search Salaries, while Bonus, Seniority, Percentile, and Currency sit as dropdowns above the results themselves and reload the comparison with the new setting.
Reading the results
The Salaries Comparison table lists one row per position and one column per location, the reference location starred and currency-labeled like every other column. Each cell shows the salary itself plus a small green or red percentage showing exactly how far above or below the reference location that figure sits, and the grouped bar chart underneath turns the same numbers into one colored bar per location so the spread is visible at a glance.
The Information comparison table underneath uses the same location columns but swaps in eight pieces of context instead of salary: Cost of Living, a Salary / Cost of Living Ratio (shown as a plain-language band from Very Low to Excellent rather than a raw number), Supply and Demand for that role locally, a Supply / Demand Ratio, Inflation, Population, and Unemployment. Cost of living, supply, and demand also carry the same green or red percentage versus the reference location as the salary table does.
Exporting and history
An Excel export captures the comparison exactly as configured; free and Pro plans see the button but not the data behind it, since the whole page is Premium-gated. Search History keeps every past comparison one click away to reopen, the same pattern used across the rest of Market Salary Search.
This is the page for decisions that hinge on where a role is based, not just what it's worth: choosing between candidate locations for a new hire, sizing a relocation package, or explaining to someone internally why the same role is paid differently in two of your offices once cost of living and local market conditions are accounted for, an explanation that matters as much for internal fairness as it does for the comparable-work reasoning behind the EU Pay Transparency Directive.
Example
Salaries Comparison
Information comparison
How to benchmark your first employee?
Benchmarking your first employee takes five steps, from adding them to reading their first market comparison. Every page mentioned here has its own full section later in this documentation.
- Add the employee on the Employees page: fill in their name, department, position, location, and salary. Adding more than one? Drag in the Excel template from Import employees instead, or connect an HRIS (Personio, HiBob, or AlexisHR) under Data integration so employees sync automatically.
- Give them a level: pick a grading framework on the Grading page if your company hasn't set one yet, TalentUp Seniority or TalentUp Levels to get going quickly, a recognized market framework like Mercer or Korn Ferry, or a personalized framework built around your own levels, then confirm the employee's level is set correctly.
- Read their market-position badge: back on Employees, that row now shows the employee's market salary range next to their actual pay, with a badge, Below market, In market, Above market, or Benchmark unavailable, comparing the two automatically.
- Unlock the full benchmark for the underlying percentiles: open Search Salaries for their exact position and location, or click Unlock directly from their row, spending a credit the first time that combination is checked.
- Once Salary Bands has a band for their level, the same employee shows up as a dot on the chart too, with their compa-ratio against the band's own midpoint, so you can see at a glance whether they're paid appropriately for their role.
How to make your first salary search?
A first search on Search Salaries takes five steps, from picking a position to reading the results. Every page and term mentioned here has its own full section later in this documentation.
- Open Search Salaries and choose how you're searching: Position is the default and always available, an autocomplete box where you can also click Match description to paste a job description instead of typing a title. Department, Category, and Location search are Premium features.
- Add a Location: a single city or country, matched against a real list as you type. This field is required, since market data is always tied to a specific place rather than remote or anywhere.
- Narrow the results if you want to, though it's optional for a first search: Sector, Company type, Number of employees, Funding, and Keywords all focus the underlying market data on a specific kind of company.
- Click Search. A position and location combination you haven't searched before costs 1 credit to fully unlock; your remaining credits are always shown on the Dashboard, and once unlocked, that combination stays visible to your whole team for a year.
- Read the results: the pay table shows P10 through P90 percentiles for each seniority level, the blue market compensation card turns the row you care about into one headline number, and compensation basis, currency, and period controls let you switch how those same numbers are displayed. The Benefits section below the table shows what companies matching your search tend to offer beyond salary.
Personio Integration
Connect Personio from the Integrate button on the Dashboard's employee card and enter your Personio Client ID and Client Secret (an OAuth2 API client you create in Personio, not your own login), then click Import. TalentUp exchanges those credentials for a short-lived access token, checks that it can actually read your employee roster, and only then queues the real import to run in the background, so a wrong or expired credential fails immediately with a clear error instead of silently importing nothing.
Example
Please enter your Personio API credentials to import your employees.
Personio
Personio API credentials
Where to find your Personio credentials
- In Personio, go to Marketplace and then Connected integrations. This needs Marketplace access; ask an admin on your Personio account if you don't have it yourself.
- Click Create custom integration.
- Under Readable employee attributes, check exactly which employee fields TalentUp should be able to read; TalentUp only ever sees what's checked there.
- Save. Personio generates a Client ID and Client Secret together, in one step, ready to paste into TalentUp's Integrate panel.
Personio is the one integration that keeps itself up to date on its own. Once connected, every time a member of your team logs in, TalentUp checks whether it's been a while since the last sync and, if so, queues a fresh one automatically, no manual re-import needed. Most of the time that's a quick delta sync pulling only what changed since last time; if more than 30 days have passed since the last sync, it upgrades itself to a full resync instead, as a safety net that catches anything a delta could miss and reconciles employees who've left. These automatic syncs are throttled to at most once every 20 minutes per company, so a dozen teammates logging in together only triggers one.
Because the credentials are stored against your company rather than your personal account, this connection is shared: any teammate's login can trigger the next sync, and the imported employees are available to your whole team the same way any other employee data is.
HiBob Integration
Connect HiBob from the same Integrate button, entering a HiBob Service User ID and Service token, the credentials for a Service Account created in HiBob for this purpose rather than a personal login. Click Import and TalentUp pulls your full people list from HiBob, then fetches each person's compensation individually and annualizes it regardless of the pay period HiBob reports it in.
Example
Please enter your HiBob service token to import your employees.
HiBob
HiBob credentials
Where to find your HiBob credentials
- In HiBob, go to Settings and then Service Users. This needs direct admin access to HiBob's settings; if you don't have it, ask a Bob Admin on your team to do the next two steps and share the result with you.
- Create a new service user.
- Copy its Service User ID and Service token, the exact two values TalentUp's Integrate panel asks for.
The import runs in the background, so you're free to keep working once it starts, a confirmation appears immediately and a notification tells you when it's ready. HiBob's API is fetched at a deliberately measured pace to stay within its rate limits, which means a company with around a hundred employees can take roughly ten minutes to finish importing; that's expected, not a sign that anything has stalled.
Unlike Personio, HiBob doesn't resync itself automatically. Reconnecting later, by reopening the same integration panel and clicking Import again, safely brings your employee data up to date without creating duplicates, so treat a HiBob connection as something to refresh manually whenever you know your roster has changed.
AlexisHR Integration
Connect AlexisHR from the same Integrate button and paste in your AlexisHR access token, then click Save and import. TalentUp fetches your employees from AlexisHR in one call, including their compensation, department, and employment details, and imports them in the background exactly like the HiBob flow, complete with the same confirmation and ready notification.
Example
Please enter your AlexisHr access-token to import your employees.
AlexisHr
Alexis Access Token
Where to find your AlexisHR credentials
- In AlexisHR, go to Settings and then Access tokens. Only someone with the Owner role can do this.
- Generate a new token.
- Enable it for the Public API scope, not Provisioning (SCIM), which is a different, unrelated scope.
- Copy the token immediately: AlexisHR only ever shows it once.
Like HiBob, an AlexisHR connection is a manual, point-in-time import rather than an ongoing sync: reopen the integration panel and re-enter your token whenever you want to pull in the latest changes from AlexisHR, and re-importing safely updates existing employees rather than duplicating them.
TalentUp Gradings
This section explains how TalentUp Gradings work across individual contributors, managers, leads, directors, heads, and executives, and how to apply them to job evaluation, salary benchmarking, and organizational design. There are two different TalentUp Gradings: TalentUp Seniority and TalentUp Levels. They're both available on the Grading page, and they're also available as a grading option on Search Salaries, Insights, Salary Bands, and Job Level Evaluation.
Download TalentUp GradingsTalentUp Seniority explained
The blended framework translates level codes into the career-path terminology most HR teams already use, from Junior Individual Contributor through Suite-Level Executive. Use this table to map your existing job titles to TalentUp Levels before running a salary benchmark.
| Career path / role type | Level | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Individual Contributor | Junior | Works on scoped, routine tasks. Requires oversight and mentoring. Eager to learn and grow. |
| Individual Contributor | Mid | Owns individual tasks with moderate supervision. Applies core concepts effectively. |
| Individual Contributor | Senior | Leads full projects with minimal oversight. Brings broad knowledge and mentors junior staff. |
| Individual Contributor | Lead | Recognized internal expert. Solves complex business problems and serves as a key resource. |
| Individual Contributor | Principal | Provides strategic guidance across multiple teams. Recognized externally as a subject matter expert. |
| Manager | Mid-Level Manager | Leads a team through projects and deadlines. Delegates work and ensures performance outcomes. |
| Manager | Senior Manager | Leads multiple teams or functions. Aligns departmental initiatives with company goals. |
| Lead (Functional Expertise) | Mid | Strong professional executing complex tasks independently. Recognized for reliability and problem-solving. |
| Lead (Functional Expertise) | Senior | Drives project success, mentors others, and operates with high independence and accountability. |
| Director | Mid-Level Director | Leads a business unit and influences organizational decisions through domain expertise. |
| Director | Senior Director | Oversees several departments. Translates strategy into actionable plans and plays a central organizational role. |
| Head-Level Roles | Mid-Level Head | Leads a business function with strategic and operational responsibility. Guides team development and reports to Directors. |
| Head-Level Roles | Senior Head | Sets functional strategy and leads cross-functional coordination. Ensures alignment with company objectives. |
| Suite-Level Executive | Mid-Level Suite | Company-wide leader shaping corporate strategy and long-term vision. Works with the board, stakeholders, and senior leadership. |
TalentUp Levels explained
The table below maps each level code, from S1 to E3, to its category, typical title, and definitions across six dimensions: autonomy, impact, expertise, complexity, scope of work, and leadership. Use it to position roles consistently when setting salary bands or designing job grades.
| Level | Category | Title | Autonomy | Impact | Expertise | Complexity | Scope of work | Leadership |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| S1 | Support roles | entry-level support | Performs routine tasks under close supervision; follows detailed instructions with limited discretion. | Provides essential operational and administrative support to ensure smooth daily business operations. | This is an entry-level position that requires basic knowledge and minimal prior experience. | Work is straightforward and procedural; limited judgment is required. | Performs clearly defined, repetitive tasks within a specific area of responsibility. | |
| S2 | Support roles | intermediate support | Handles a wider range of tasks with moderate independence; makes decisions within clear guidelines. | Supports business operations through reliable task execution and problem-solving within defined boundaries. | Has working knowledge and skills developed through training or relevant experience. | Solves routine to moderately complex problems using established procedures. | Manages varied but related tasks; contributes to improving efficiency within the team or process. | May provide guidance to colleagues with less experience on routine tasks. |
| S3 | Support roles | advanced support | Operates with minimal supervision; prioritizes tasks and solves complex issues independently. | Ensures quality and efficiency in operational processes through advanced support and problem-solving. | Has specialized knowledge and strong technical or administrative skills gained through significant experience. | Handles complex and sometimes unpredictable issues; adapts existing processes to meet business needs. | Works across multiple areas or systems; contributes to process improvement and operational excellence. | Acts as a point of reference or informal mentor for colleagues; may coordinate activities within a small team. |
| P1 | Professional roles | entry-level professional | Works on well-defined tasks under close supervision; follows detailed instructions and established procedures. | Contributes to team objectives through accurate execution of assigned work with limited individual impact. | Entry-level role requiring foundational knowledge and initial professional experience. | Performs routine and procedural assignments with guidance from senior colleagues. | Delivers specific tasks within a narrow area of responsibility. | |
| P2 | Professional roles | intermediate professional | Handles moderately complex assignments with some autonomy; seeks guidance when facing unfamiliar situations. | Has low to moderate impact on the success of own function or discipline. | Developing professional with working knowledge and practical experience in own field. | Applies known concepts and methods to solve varied but related problems. | Contributes to projects within own area; accountable for quality and timeliness of assigned work. | May share knowledge and provide informal guidance to less experienced colleagues. |
| P3 | Professional roles | advanced professional | Works independently with minimal supervision; manages priorities and determines approaches to assignments. | Has a moderate to high impact on the success of own function or discipline through delivery of complex work. | Possesses in-depth knowledge in own discipline; acts as a resource or mentor for colleagues with less experience. | Handles complex assignments and adapts existing approaches to solve new challenges. | Leads components of larger projects or manages complete workstreams within own function. | May mentor others and provide functional guidance to small teams or project groups. |
| P4 | Professional roles | functional leader | Operates with high autonomy; defines objectives and priorities for own area of responsibility. | Directly influences the success of own function or business area through strategic decisions and leadership. | Has advanced knowledge of own discipline and solid understanding of related areas. | Leads initiatives that involve complex analysis, coordination, and problem-solving across multiple teams. | Responsible for significant projects or programs that support business objectives within a function. | Provides direction and leadership within a business area; may manage or coordinate professional teams. |
| P5 | Professional roles | top-tier expert | Operates independently with wide decision-making latitude; sets strategic direction in own domain. | Materially influences business outcomes and cross-departmental or global strategies. | Recognized authority with deep and specialized expertise; often serves as a company-wide or industry-level reference. | Handles the most complex, high-impact problems requiring original thinking and broad business understanding. | Shapes functional or enterprise-level initiatives with long-term implications. | Acts as a strategic advisor and thought leader; mentors senior professionals and influences organizational direction. |
| M1 | Manager roles | manager | Leads a small team or department with guidance from senior management; follows established policies and goals. | Accountable for the performance and results of a small team or sub-area within a function. | Experienced professional with strong understanding of operational processes and people management basics. | Manages day-to-day operations, coordinates resources, and resolves routine issues within own area. | Leads a team of support or professional staff to meet defined objectives and service levels. | Provides direct supervision, coaching, and performance feedback to team members. |
| M2 | Manager roles | senior manager | Operates with significant independence; sets team priorities in line with business strategy. | Accountable for the performance and results of a department or large team within own discipline or function. | Experienced manager with deep understanding of functional processes and interdependencies. | Oversees diverse activities requiring coordination of multiple teams or complex support functions. | Manages professional employees and/or supervisors; ensures achievement of operational and strategic objectives. | Leads and develops team leaders and professionals; fosters collaboration and continuous improvement. |
| M3 | Manager roles | director-level manager | Operates with broad discretion in decision-making; defines direction for multiple teams or departments. | Directly influences the success of a major function or business unit through leadership and strategic execution. | Strong business and functional knowledge; able to translate strategy into operational outcomes. | Leads complex programs or projects spanning multiple departments; integrates strategic and operational goals. | Responsible for multiple departments or functions; accountable for delivering long-term results. | Provides leadership to managers and senior professionals; shapes culture, priorities, and performance standards. |
| M4 | Manager roles | associate director | Operates with high autonomy; translates company strategy into plans across multiple teams or functions. | Drives results across a significant function or multiple departments with cross-functional influence. | Advanced business and functional expertise; strong ability to align execution with strategic goals. | Manages complex, cross-functional initiatives with competing priorities and dependencies. | Leads multiple teams or a major function; accountable for medium- to long-term objectives. | Leads managers and senior professionals; enables collaboration and consistent execution at scale. |
| M5 | Manager roles | senior director | Operates with enterprise-level autonomy; shapes strategic direction across major business areas. | Influences company-wide outcomes through strategic leadership and alignment of key priorities. | Broad and deep business expertise; strong strategic judgment and executive-level perspective. | Leads highly complex, multi-year initiatives with significant organizational and business impact. | Responsible for large functions or multiple business areas; accountable for long-term performance. | Provides senior leadership across the organization; sets vision, direction, and leadership standards. |
| E1 | Executive roles | senior executive | Operates with broad autonomy; defines strategy and priorities for major functions or business units. | Makes high-impact decisions that shape performance and direction within a significant part of the company. | Deep business and leadership expertise; recognized authority within own function or domain. | Oversees diverse and complex operations, integrating multiple functions and markets. | Responsible for achieving results across a major business unit or global function. | Provides leadership and direction through directors and senior directors; leads through multiple levels of management. |
| E2 | Executive roles | group executive | Operates with full strategic authority within assigned region or business group; minimal oversight. | Directly impacts company-wide outcomes through accountability for large-scale business performance. | Extensive experience leading major divisions or regions; deep understanding of enterprise dynamics. | Leads across multiple geographies or business lines with complex stakeholder and market environments. | Shapes and executes strategies for an entire business group or global region. | Provides leadership and direction to other executives, typically at the VP level; fosters alignment across divisions. |
| E3 | Executive roles | chief executive officer | Holds ultimate decision-making authority; defines the company's strategic vision, mission, and culture. | Responsible for the overall performance and long-term success of the organization. | Comprehensive business acumen and leadership capability spanning all company functions. | Leads a multifaceted global organization; balances strategic, operational, and governance priorities. | Sets enterprise-wide direction and ensures alignment with stakeholder and board expectations. | Leads the executive team and serves as the key representative to the board, investors, and external partners. |
Percentiles and penetration
A percentile shows where a salary sits within the market for that role: P10 means 10% of the market earns less, P50 (the median) is the market's midpoint, and P90 means only 10% of the market earns more. Percentile range penetration places an individual employee's own salary within their level's P25-P99 range, as a 0-100% position.
Compa-ratio
Compa-ratio compares an actual salary to a reference value: salary divided by that reference, times 100. A compa-ratio of 100 means the salary matches the reference exactly; below 100 is under it, above 100 is over it.
The platform uses two different references depending on where you see it: on Search Salaries, Insights and Benchmark Comparison, the reference is the market value at a target percentile (P50 by default). On Salary Bands, the reference is that employee's band midpoint instead — so the same employee can show a slightly different compa-ratio on each page, on purpose.
Reading band status
Every colored badge you see on an employee — on Employees, Insights and Salary Bands — comes from the same four-state band status:
The employee's salary is below the band minimum for their level.
The employee's salary falls within the band's minimum-maximum range.
The employee's salary is above the band maximum for their level.
There isn't enough market data for that position and level yet.
Salary basis
Gross is pay before taxes and employee social security. Net is what the employee actually takes home after those deductions. Company cost adds the employer's own social security and other mandatory contributions on top of gross — it's what the role actually costs the company. Contractor shows an equivalent hourly/day rate for non-payroll engagements. Switching basis changes the numbers you see everywhere without changing the underlying market data.
Peer groups
Premium plan only.A peer group is a named list of at least 5 companies you choose to benchmark against instead of the whole market — your closest competitors, for example. Once saved, you can select it as a filter on Search Salaries or as your company's default comparison set.
Frequently asked questions
There isn't enough market data for that specific position, location and level combination yet, or the employee's level isn't part of the currently active grading. Try a broader location or check the employee's assigned level on the Employees page.