LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 800 million members worldwide. As a career-focused social media platform, LinkedIn allows users to create profiles summarizing their work history, skills, and education. One of LinkedIn’s most popular features is giving users the ability to view salary ranges for various job titles and companies.
While LinkedIn offers free access to basic profile creation and searching features, they also provide premium subscriptions that unlock additional functionality. LinkedIn Premium subscriptions provide benefits like more advanced profile searches, expanded network reach, and extra profile customization options.
A common question among LinkedIn users is whether upgrading to a Premium account grants access to view salary information that is not available to free users. Here is a detailed look at what types of salary insights are available on LinkedIn and whether Premium status allows you to view more salary data.
What Salary Information Does LinkedIn Provide?
LinkedIn provides two main ways for users to access salary insights:
- Salary feature – Provides salary ranges for specific job titles at specific companies.
- Salary Insights tool – Gives estimated salary ranges for a given job title in a particular location.
The Salary feature shows the low and high ends of the salary range that actual employees have reported earning for a given role at a specific company. However, this data is only available for certain companies that choose to display salary ranges on their LinkedIn Company Pages.
Salary Insights gives you a view of estimated salary ranges for a given job title in your selected location. The estimates are based on what other LinkedIn members have reported earning in similar roles and areas. The salary range visualize in histogram displaying the distribution of reported salaries.
Does a Premium Account Give You Access to More Salary Information?
Unfortunately, upgrading to a Premium account does not grant additional access to view salary data on LinkedIn.
The Salary and Salary Insights tools are available to both free and Premium members. There is no extra salary data unlocked with a Premium subscription at this time.
Some key things to note about LinkedIn’s salary features:
- The Salary ranges displayed are based on data voluntarily provided by LinkedIn members. Not all members choose to report their salaries.
- Salary Insights ranges are estimates only. The actual salaries earned in a given role at a company may vary.
- The quantity of salary data available varies by job and location. More in-demand roles and popular areas will typically have more salary data.
- Premium members and free members see the same salary information. There are no hidden salary insights for Premium subscribers.
While Premium won’t get you access to more salary ranges, it can still provide value in your job search through other benefits like:
- Seeing how you rank against other applicants when applying for jobs.
- Message recruitment with unlimited InMails.
- Take skill assessment tests to showcase your abilities.
- View up to 3 recent searchers’ full profiles to evaluate mutual connections.
But when it comes to salary data specifically, free and Premium members have access to the same information. LinkedIn does not provide additional salary details to Premium subscribers.
How Accurate Is LinkedIn Salary Information?
The accuracy of LinkedIn’s salary data depends on several factors:
- User-reported information – Since LinkedIn salary ranges rely on voluntary user submissions, they may not represent true averages if the sample size is low or biased.
- Anonymization methods – To protect privacy, LinkedIn may further anonymize, randomize, or subset submitted salary data.
- Geographic granularity – Salary Insights are not available for all metro areas, so location-based estimates may be imprecise.
- Role variability – Salaries can vary significantly depending on a role’s seniority level, specialty, industry, and responsibilities.
Overall, LinkedIn salary data should be considered useful guidance but not precise averages. Speak with recruiters or conduct additional local market research to get a more tailored sense of compensation for a given role.
Tips for Assessing Accuracy of Salary Ranges
- Check the number of submitted salaries available – More responses generally mean more reliable ranges.
- Compare multiple data sources like Glassdoor or government labor reports.
- Consider filtering by seniority, location, industry, company size, and other criteria to refine the relevance of ranges.
Should You Pay for Premium Just for Salary Insights?
Since Premium access does not unlock additional salary insights, it likely does not make sense to pay for Premium solely for viewing salary data.
However, there are a few cases where Premium could provide added value in your salary research:
- You want to view the full names and profiles of members who submitted salary data to evaluate their relevance.
- Accessing Premium search filters helps refine your salary searches by title, date, location, company, experience level and other criteria.
- Premium shows step-by-step guidance on how your profile competes against other applicants when applying for jobs.
But for most people, the free Salary and Salary Insights tools will provide sufficient high-level salary benchmarks during a job search. Paying $29.99 – $59.99 per month for Premium may not be necessary strictly for salary data purposes in many cases.
Other Ways to Research Salaries
If you need more granular, tailor salary ranges for a specific role, here are some alternative resources beyond LinkedIn to consider:
- Company job listings – Desired salary ranges are sometimes listed on job postings.
- Salary comparison sites – Sites like Glassdoor, Payscale, Salary.com let you research salaries by title, company, location.
- Professional associations – Industry/role-specific groups may conduct annual salary surveys of their members.
- Bureau of Labor Statistics – The BLS provides in-depth salary reports by occupation, location, and experience.
- Recruiters – Experienced recruiters will have insight into salary norms and ranges in your industry.
Table showing sample LinkedIn salary insights for popular roles
| Job Title | Location | Salary Range | Sample Size |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software Engineer | San Francisco, CA | $96,000 – $208,000 | 789 |
| Registered Nurse | Houston, TX | $60,000 – $90,000 | 424 |
| Marketing Manager | Chicago, IL | $68,000 – $118,000 | 612 |
| Project Manager | New York, NY | $78,000 – $140,000 | 1,023 |
| UX Designer | Seattle, WA | $90,000 – $125,000 | 342 |
This table provides a few sample salary ranges for popular roles in major US cities using fictional data. It illustrates how LinkedIn Salary Insights displays its crowd-sourced salary information at a glance. The number of submitted samples provides an indication of how reliable each range may be.
Conclusion
While LinkedIn provides useful salary information on its platform, upgrading to premium does not grant access to additional salary data. Both free and premium members can view the same job title salary ranges and insights. Before paying for premium, carefully evaluate whether the other additional features will be truly valuable for your job search needs.
Keep in mind that crowd-sourced salary data has limitations and should be cross-checked. But overall, LinkedIn Salary Insights provide a helpful starting point to gauge average pay ranges when evaluating job opportunities and negotiating offers.
LinkedIn is constantly evolving their platform, so it’s possible they may unlock more premium-only salary insights in the future. But at least as of 2023, free and premium access provide the very same salary data. Carefully assess whether premium may assist your job hunt in other ways, but don’t feel salary information alone is worth the premium price.
