Question

In SQL Server, I am trying to get the top 5 salaries.

I have salaries like

5000
5000
4500
4500
3000
2000 
1000
500
400

and I’d like to get

5000
5000
4500
4500
3000
2000
1000 

Answer 1

If you want to get the top 5 distinct salaries (no matter how many times the same amount might show up), you need to use the DENSE_RANK() ranking function and a CTE to achieve this:

DECLARE @salaries TABLE (salary DECIMAL(18,4))

INSERT INTO @salaries VALUES(5000)
INSERT INTO @salaries VALUES(5000)
INSERT INTO @salaries VALUES(4500)
INSERT INTO @salaries VALUES(4500)
INSERT INTO @salaries VALUES(3000)
INSERT INTO @salaries VALUES(2000)
INSERT INTO @salaries VALUES(1000)
INSERT INTO @salaries VALUES(500)
INSERT INTO @salaries VALUES(400)

;WITH SalariesRanked AS
(
    SELECT 
        Salary, 
        SalaryNumber = DENSE_RANK() OVER(ORDER BY Salary DESC)
    FROM    
        @salaries
)
SELECT salary
FROM SalariesRanked 
WHERE SalaryNumber <= 5

This results in an output like this:

salary
5000.0000
5000.0000
4500.0000
4500.0000
3000.0000
2000.0000
1000.0000