When you are reading salary data on Get on Board, the median is the midpoint: half of the salaries fall above it and half below. It is the single number that best describes what a typical role pays.
Median vs. average
The average adds every salary and divides by how many there are, so a few extreme values pull it off-center. One executive-level salary in the dataset can lift the average well above what most people actually earn. The median ignores how far the outliers sit — it only cares about the middle — so it reflects the typical case more honestly.
A quick example: for salaries of 1,000, 1,100, 1,200, and 6,000, the average is 2,325 but the median is 1,150. The median is the number you would budget against.
When the average still helps
The average is not useless. Read together with the median, a large gap between them signals a skewed market — often a few very high or very low salaries worth understanding before you set a range.
How Insights Pro shows this
Insights Pro anchors its recommendations on the median, with the average and standard deviation shown alongside as supporting context in the salary distribution tables. This keeps recommendations centered on the typical role rather than the extremes.
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