Determine the Second Highest and Nth Highest Salary From a Column in SQL Server 2012

Creating Table in SQL Server Database

Now create a table named UserDetail with the columns ID, UserName, CompanyName, Salary. Set the identity property=true for ID. The table looks as in the following:

Solution1

In this solution first we determine the top 2 salaries from the salary column in descending order. After that we find the min salary from two salaries using the min function. That will be the second highest salary. The following query defines that:

select min(Salary) as SecondHighestSalary from UserDetail where Salary in

(select distinct TOP 2 (Salary) from UserDetail order by Salary desc)

OUTPUT

Solution2

In this solution first we determine the max 2 salaries from the salary column. After that we define a condition wherein the max salary is less than from the outer query. That will be the second highest salary. The following query defines that:

select MAX (salary ) from UserDetail where

salary not in(select MAX (salary) from UserDetail )

Solution3

This solution is similar to the previous solution. We can also write the previous query as in the following query:

select MAX (salary ) from UserDetail where