How Wide Are Salary Ranges? 39,000 Job Postings Analyzed (2026)
How wide is a salary range in a job posting? We analyzed about 39,000 USD and EUR postings: the median range is 37% wide and a third are 50% wide or more.
Among roughly 39,000 USD and EUR job postings in our index that publish a pay range, the median range is about 37% wide: the top end is about 1.37 times the bottom, so a typical range looks like 100,000-137,000. About a third of those ranges are 50% wide or more. For a candidate, that means the range is a negotiating zone, not a price tag. Anchor your ask in the upper half, treat the midpoint as the employer's comfortable number rather than the offer you are owed, and use the top of the range as the figure you argue toward with evidence.
These numbers come from a snapshot of live postings in the japply jobs table taken on 9 October 2026. The method and its limits are at the end of this page. You may reuse these figures with a link to this page.
Key findings
The short version, in sentences you can quote:
- The median EUR salary range is 37.0% wide and the median USD range is 36.4% wide, measured as the gap between the top and bottom figures divided by the bottom.
- 32.5% of EUR ranges and 36.0% of USD ranges are 50% wide or more.
- In both currencies the median range spans 40,000 between its bottom and top figures.
- EUR ranges for software engineers are the widest role-level ranges we measured, with a median width of 50.2%.
- Junior and entry-level USD postings carry wider ranges (median 50.0%) than director, head-of and VP postings (median 30.0%).
- Among USD postings from one feed where the remote flag is reliable, the median midpoint is 165,000 for non-remote roles and 136,700 for remote roles, a raw gap that reflects different role mixes rather than a like-for-like penalty.
Range width by currency
Ranges in EUR and USD postings are almost the same width, about 36 to 37% at the median. GBP and CAD ranges look narrower, but those samples are small and should be treated as indicative only.
| Currency | Postings with a range | Single figure (bottom = top) | Median width | Median width % of bottom | Ranges 50%+ wide | Median midpoint |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EUR | 19,795 | 1,270 | 40,000 | 37.0% | 32.5% | 119,250 |
| USD | 19,212 | 643 | 40,000 | 36.4% | 36.0% | 140,000 |
| CAD | 590 | 31 | 26,025 | 25.0% | 18.3% | 116,000 |
| GBP | 215 | 42 | 10,000 | 20.0% | 7.9% | 57,500 |
Width % is (top - bottom) / bottom. A posting that lists one figure as both ends counts as a range of zero width. The 1,270 EUR and 643 USD single-figure postings are included in the medians above.
The EUR midpoints run well above typical national salaries in most EU countries. That is a property of the sample: these are internationally advertised, mostly remote, mostly tech-company postings, not a cross-section of European employers.
Pay by role
Software engineering and data science postings in EUR carry the widest ranges, about 50% at the median, while most other roles sit between 25% and 40%. The table shows midpoints (the average of each posting's bottom and top figure) at the 25th percentile, median and 75th percentile, plus the median range width. A role is matched when its keyword appears in the job title, and only role and currency pairs with at least 30 postings are shown.
| Role | Currency | n | p25 midpoint | Median midpoint | p75 midpoint | Median width % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Software engineer | USD | 1,260 | 140,375 | 175,000 | 207,500 | 40.0 |
| Software engineer | EUR | 2,382 | 81,000 | 126,000 | 168,000 | 50.2 |
| Product manager | USD | 412 | 140,000 | 173,250 | 203,125 | 33.3 |
| Product manager | EUR | 252 | 96,460 | 143,000 | 177,900 | 36.7 |
| Data scientist | USD | 76 | 144,750 | 175,000 | 203,838 | 33.3 |
| Data scientist | EUR | 314 | 103,825 | 131,000 | 167,984 | 50.0 |
| DevOps | USD | 78 | 121,250 | 151,250 | 184,375 | 37.5 |
| DevOps | EUR | 295 | 100,000 | 124,500 | 150,678 | 39.1 |
| Designer | USD | 344 | 98,625 | 150,000 | 185,000 | 38.6 |
| Designer | EUR | 151 | 91,750 | 128,000 | 144,300 | 32.5 |
| Marketing manager | USD | 207 | 111,648 | 135,000 | 156,706 | 25.0 |
| Recruiter | USD | 100 | 92,160 | 135,000 | 165,000 | 26.3 |
| Nurse | USD | 283 | 127,500 | 135,000 | 200,000 | 18.5 |
| Sales | USD | 1,181 | 78,000 | 115,000 | 167,425 | 33.3 |
| Sales | EUR | 308 | 92,000 | 117,750 | 143,000 | 35.5 |
| Customer success | USD | 342 | 82,125 | 114,739 | 154,351 | 34.1 |
| Project manager | USD | 179 | 96,300 | 115,000 | 135,000 | 30.0 |
| Project manager | EUR | 156 | 92,750 | 120,000 | 143,000 | 32.5 |
| Data analyst | USD | 68 | 82,125 | 104,901 | 136,613 | 33.2 |
| Data analyst | EUR | 188 | 80,000 | 105,000 | 130,834 | 33.3 |
| Accountant | USD | 60 | 70,000 | 87,500 | 103,057 | 32.5 |
Two caveats matter here. The nurse sample is dominated by remote and telehealth registered-nurse and case-manager roles, so it does not represent bedside nursing pay. And as above, the EUR figures describe international, remote-leaning postings, not national pay scales.
For current numbers on a specific role, the salary explorer reads from the same jobs table and refreshes daily.
Seniority
Pay rises with the seniority word in the title, but range width does not follow a straight line: junior postings have the widest ranges and director-level postings the narrowest. Figures below are USD postings only, grouped by the level word in the job title.
| Level word in title | n | Median midpoint | Median width % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intern | 91 | 35,000 | 33.4 |
| Junior / jr / entry / graduate | 129 | 60,000 | 50.0 |
| No level word | 11,985 | 125,000 | 37.5 |
| Senior / sr / lead | 4,374 | 153,638 | 35.3 |
| Staff / principal | 1,131 | 208,500 | 43.8 |
| Director / head of / VP | 1,502 | 191,300 | 30.0 |
Staff and principal postings have a higher median midpoint than director, head-of and VP postings, and a wider range. One plausible reading is that senior individual-contributor roles span a broad band of scope under one title, while management titles are more tightly levelled. The junior and intern samples are small, so read those rows as direction rather than precision.
Remote vs not remote
In the one feed where the remote flag is filled in for both remote and non-remote USD postings, non-remote roles have a higher median midpoint (165,000) than remote roles (136,700). This is a raw gap, not a remote pay penalty.
| Remote | n | Median midpoint |
|---|---|---|
| No | 4,705 | 165,000 |
| Yes | 5,207 | 136,700 |
The two groups differ in role mix, seniority and the companies hiring, so the comparison does not hold the job constant. A remote and an on-site version of the same role at the same company could be priced identically, and this table could still show a gap. Use it as a prompt to check how a specific employer prices location, not as a discount to accept.
What this means when you negotiate
A published range tells you where the employer has room, and with a median width of about 37%, that room is large. Use it deliberately:
- Anchor in the upper half. Name a figure between the midpoint and the top, then explain it with your evidence: scope you have already held, results with numbers, skills the posting lists as preferred.
- Do not treat the midpoint as the offer. The midpoint is where the employer is comfortable. If you accept the midpoint as fair by default, you have given away the half of the range you could argue for.
- Ask what separates the bottom from the top. "What would someone at the top of this range be doing in the first year?" turns a vague band into a concrete set of expectations you can match.
- Treat a very wide range as a levelling question. A range 50% wide or more often covers more than one level. Ask which level the role is being hired at before you talk numbers.
- Check against outside data. Compare the posting with live figures for the role in the salary explorer or an estimate from the salary estimator, and run the number through the take-home pay calculator so you negotiate on what lands in your account.
Your resume carries the evidence for an upper-half ask. If the bullets do not show scope and results, fix that first with the resume builder, then prepare for the pay conversation alongside the rest of your interview preparation.
The EU Pay Transparency Directive
The EU Pay Transparency Directive gives job applicants a right to pay information before the interview, but it does not require employers to put a range in the advert and does not limit how wide a range can be. Directive (EU) 2023/970 had a transposition deadline of 7 June 2026.
Under Article 5, applicants must receive the initial pay or its range before the interview, or otherwise in time for an informed negotiation. Publishing it in the vacancy notice is one permitted way to do that, not a mandatory one. Nothing in the directive caps range width, so a wide range can be fully compliant.
National rollout is uneven. According to a Morgan Lewis update from September 2026, only Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Malta and Slovakia had fully transposed the directive, while the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands had signalled implementation no earlier than 1 January 2027. If you are applying in the EU and the advert has no range, asking for one before the interview is reasonable, and in more countries over time it will be a legal right.
Methodology and limitations
The data is a read-only snapshot of the japply jobs table taken on 9 October 2026, limited to live postings, meaning postings with no expiry date or an expiry date in the future.
- Sources. Salaried postings come almost entirely from two international, remote-leaning feeds: Herizon's remote jobs feed and Himalayas, a remote-jobs board. The sample is therefore remote-leaning international postings that publish a range, not the whole labour market.
- Range filter. A posting is included when it has both a bottom and a top figure, each between 10,000 and 1,000,000, with the top greater than or equal to the bottom.
- Width. Width % is (top - bottom) / bottom. A 37% wide range is, for example, 100,000-137,000.
- Roles. A posting matches a role when the keyword appears in its title. Pairs with fewer than 30 postings are not shown.
- Seniority. Grouped by a level word in the title, USD only.
- Remote. Compared within one source only, because it is the only source where the remote flag is populated for both remote and non-remote postings.
- Small samples. GBP and CAD figures are indicative only.
We do not report a salary disclosure rate or an overall remote share. Many of the feeds in our index do not carry a salary field or a remote flag at all, so a disclosure rate or remote share computed from our table would measure our data pipeline, not employer behaviour.
Common questions
How wide is a typical salary range in a job posting?
In our sample of about 39,000 EUR and USD postings, the median range is about 37% wide, so a posting starting at 100,000 typically tops out around 137,000. About a third of ranges are 50% wide or more.
Should I ask for the top of the range?
Ask in the upper half and be ready to justify it. Asking for the very top works when your experience clearly matches what the employer describes for that end of the band. Otherwise, a figure between the midpoint and the top, backed by specific results, is easier to defend.
Why are the EUR salaries in this study so high?
The EUR postings come from internationally advertised, mostly remote, mostly tech-company roles. They run well above typical national salaries in most EU countries and should not be read as average European pay.
Does EU law require salary ranges in job ads?
No. Directive (EU) 2023/970 requires that applicants receive the initial pay or its range before the interview or in time to negotiate. Publishing it in the advert is one permitted way, not a requirement, and the directive does not cap range width.
Can I cite these figures?
Yes. You may reuse these figures with a link to this page. For live per-role numbers, link to the salary explorer, which reads from the same jobs table.