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Salary Data Comparator

Posted on junio 26, 2024 by Excel Pedro Wave

🔝To translate this blog post to your language, select it in the top left Google box.


Types of data professionals

I have designed this Salary Data Comparator to know the salary of data professionals:

  • Data Analyst: Helps make decisions by analyzing, cleaning and transforming data.
  • Data Scientist: Knows statistics, big data, algorithms, scientific computing, etc.
  • Data Engineer: It is capable of designing databases, analyzing and processing segmented information (data pipeline), etc.

In this animated image I compare the salaries in the USA vs Italy of these 4 types of data professionals.

I show the salary range between the minimum and the maximum salary, with the option of also showing the average salary, which is the most common among professionals in the two chosen countries.


Who gave me the idea of ​​comparing salary data?

The Italian Roberto Mensa is the greatest charts expert I know, so he has managed to be Microsoft Excel MVP.

His specialty is "doing the impossible" with Excel charts, and he demonstrates it in his Gallery:

A few weeks ago he published a radar chart with the Types of Data Professionals:

In addition to the radar chart, with the skills of the 4 types of data professionals, it also represents the popularity of these professionals in a line chart, and the salary range of these 4 professions in a scatter chart, in thousands of US dollars ( k$).

It does not specify whether the salary ranges are worldwide or what country those salaries are from. It is assumed that they are from the United States, since their salaries are considerably high compared to those in European countries.

I have uploaded Roberto's file to my OneDrive cloud with his authorization.

To adjust cloud zoom:

  • On your mobile or cell phone, use two fingers on the screen, like you do to enlarge or reduce a photo.
  • On the PC, place the cursor inside the search engine and press the <Control> key by turning the mouse wheel.

I have simply made the following changes to the Roberto's salary range chart:

  • Salary range with the average salary marked with a diamond 🔶
  • Option to show average salary.
  • List of countries to compare.
  • Selection of one or two countries.
  • Labels of the types of professionals to the left of zero salary.
  • Salaries in a country or comparator of salaries in two countries.
  • Dynamic chart title to show the names of the countries compared.
  • Comparator in 6 languages: English, Spanish, French, Italian, German and Portuguese.
  • Exchange rate of 3 types of currencies: Euros (€), Pounds sterling (£) and American dollars ($).


Salary comparator data

The first thing I did was obtain the salary range data of the 4 types of data professionals for 9 countries, along with their average salary, and I saved them in a table on the 'Data' sheet:

I have decided to compare the salaries of 7 European countries, Mexico and the United States, to make it more international.

I obtained these annual salary data, in thousands of euros (k€), by asking the AI of Microsoft Copilot on Bing, with some Prompts that I am not going to reproduce here.

The AI ​​responded with salary data imported from various sources in thousands of euros (€), as I requested.

When the currency rate changes, it will be necessary to update it in the cells in yellow background, with the conversion rate from pounds sterling (£) and US dollars ($) to euros (€).


Transformation of salary data

Roberto Mensa's version uses the latest Excel features, such as functions LAMBDA y LET, to obtain the series data from the chart.

The hidden sheet 'Support' contains the formulas for the scatter plot with straight lines and markers, with which the salary ranges are represented. In cell Q2 is the Spilled dynamic array formula with the X values ​​of the series. In cell Q7 is the formula with the Y values ​​of the series.

These formulas are very elegant and complex, since they ensure that the headers with the names of the series and their data are generated with a single formula.

The biggest problem is that using the LAMBDA function limits the chart to the versions of Excel for Microsoft 365 and Excel for the web, so it is not compatible with older versions of Excel.

It also adds a level of difficulty for Excel users who are unaware of these new functions, so there will be few who understand them and even fewer who can modify the functions of cells Q2 and Q7.

I haven't even tried to analyze and understand those formulas! and even less modify them!

Roberto, we need a detailed explanation of those formulas to understand them!

I am in favor of designing spreadsheets compatible with all possible versions of Excel, from Excel 2010 to Excel for Microsoft 365, since my followers are scattered around the world and many do not have the most recent versions of Excel installed. Which forces me to use functions common to all those versions of Excel and check compatibility following these guidelines:


My Salary Data Comparator transforms the data in the hidden 'Auxiliary' sheet.

The pivot table for the A:E columns has the data source in the salary table of the 'Data' sheet.

The pivot table for the M column contains the Average (Yes/No) option.

The auxiliary table of the range G1:K8 are the X values of the scatter chart series, obtained with formulas compatible with the GETPIVOTDATA function, that returns visible data from the dynamic salary table.

The auxiliary table of the range G12:K19 are the Y values ​​of the scatter chart series, obtained with the auxiliary formulas of the range H11:K11 and the value of cell G22, to know if it has been filtered by a single country or by several countries.

Since the ranges H5:K5 and H16:K16 are empty, the straight lines that would join a salary range of the first country to be compared with the salary range of the second country disappear.

The value -50 in cell G11 is the X value of the series labels with the names of the 4 types of data professionals. This way the labels with the low values ​​of the salary ranges do not overlap in the scatter chart!

The chart title is obtained in the G21 and J21 cells.


Salary Data Comparator Languages

In the 'Languages' sheet there are the translations into the 6 languages ​​of this Comparator:


Salary Data Comparator Chart

The Salary Data Comparator is represented in a single XY scatter chart with straight lines and markers.

Salary ranges are represented with 4 data series, one for each type of data professional.

The labels of each type of professional are represented with 4 other data series.

The origin of these series are the auxiliary tables discussed in the previous section.

The range values ​​are united by lines of different color for each of the 4 types of professionals.

The minimum and maximum values ​​are marked with a circle 🔴 and the average values ​​with a diamond 🔶.

The X axis goes from 0 to 250, in thousands of euros (€).

The Y axis goes from 2 to 18 and is not visible. It is used to separate the 8 possible visible salary ranges in the Salary Data Comparator, shown in the following image:

This is the result of comparing the salary ranges of the 4 types of data professionals from 2 countries.

With 3 segmentations you achieve:

  • Filter from one to four types of data professionals.
  • Filter by one or two countries.
  • Filter the option to show (Yes) or not show (No) the average salary.

To change the language of the Salary Data Comparator there is a drop-down list in cell S2.

ATTENTION: After a Language change you must update chart with: Data > Refresh All (Control + Alt + F5)

ATTENTION: Update Currency if the language changes.


Cloud Salary Data Comparator

I've shared the Salary Data Comparator in the Microsoft OneDrive cloud, so it's easy to test even if you don't have Excel installed on your computer.

To adjust cloud zoom:

  • On your mobile or cell phone, use two fingers on the screen, like you do to enlarge or reduce a photo.
  • On the PC, place the cursor inside the search engine and press the <Control> key by turning the mouse wheel.

    NOTICE: The changes you make in my cloud are not saved. To save your changes you have to make a copy in your OneDrive cloud.


    Download the Salary Data Comparator

    The Salary Data Comparator is compatible with versions from Excel 2010 to Excel for Microsoft 365 and Excel for the web.

    Download the latest version from one of these links:

    Open the file and press the button: Enable Editing when the PROTECTED VIEW prompt appears.

    Sheets and workbook are protected without password, so you can study and analyze the formulas, and view the hidden sheets.

    ATTENTION: You can modify this Excel workbook respecting this license:

    CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Deed | Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International | Creative Commons


    Other graphs with salary ranges

    This page is a classic on salary charts, so I can't help linking it here:

    Do you know other types of Excel charts with salary ranges? Comment please!

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