How to read salary data on review sites without fooling yourself

Four questions for any posted figure

Most disappointment comes from comparing unlike numbers.

• Is it monthly or annual, and in which currency?
• Is it basic pay or total package with housing and transport?
• Which country and city does it describe?
• How recent is it, and how many people reported the same thing?

Why one number is the wrong unit

Individual figures are easy to identify and easy to skew—one senior outlier can distort a small sample, and a precise number attached to a small team can point back at a person. That is why Sadeq publishes pay as a band, withholds figures until enough people have reported, and never shows how a single contributor answered.

Using pay evidence in a negotiation

Bands are strong negotiating material precisely because they are defensible: you are describing a market range rather than claiming to know a colleague's salary. Bring the range, ask how the employer sets bands, and ask what moves someone from the bottom to the middle of one.

Where self-reported pay data goes wrong

Self-reported salary data carries predictable distortions, and knowing them makes you a better reader. People report more often after a good outcome than an ordinary one, which lifts the apparent range. Senior and technical roles are over-represented because those workers use the sites most. Older entries linger without being marked stale. And small samples are dominated by whoever happened to answer.

None of that makes the data worthless. It means a posted range describes what some people in roughly this role reported, not what the job pays. Treat it as a starting hypothesis and test it against a written offer, a recruiter's stated range, and a second source.

Building your own comparison in ten minutes

Take the two or three roles you are considering and write each package out in the same shape. Doing it by hand is what exposes the gaps a posted figure hides.

• One currency, one period—monthly, gross, in the contract currency
• Basic pay separated from each named allowance
• Bonus target with its eligibility conditions and payment history
• Benefits you would otherwise buy: medical cover, schooling, flights
• The cost side: commute, housing outside any allowance, unpaid overtime
• End-of-service and notice treatment under the contract's jurisdiction