Employers held advertised pay flat for the same jobs again this release. Across the 441 job titles with enough postings in both windows to compare fairly, advertised pay was unchanged at 0.0% in the 90 days from August 3 through October 31, 2026, the same reading as the October report. That matched-title figure is the movement number to use, because it holds the title mix constant. The raw median across all 969,388 deduplicated, pay-bearing postings from 106,647 employers was $70,000, against $75,152 in the prior 90 days. Read that gap with care: the posting sample expanded again in October 2026, so the sample behind this report is larger than the one behind earlier reports.
This is the third monthly release from SalaryCube Data Lab, following the October 2026 report and the August 2026 report. It is written for HR and compensation professionals who need to know what the hiring market is offering right now, not what last year's survey said. Every number below is advertised pay from US employer job postings, computed from the job-postings layer of SalaryCube's Bigfoot Live engine. It is what employers are offering, not what current employees are paid, and nothing here is a forecast.
Quick Answer
Advertised pay for matched job titles was flat (0.0%) in the 90 days ending October 31, 2026, the same reading as the October report. The raw median was $70,000. 73.0% of pay-transparent postings list a true range, and 53.1% quote an hourly or periodic rate. Among postings that state an arrangement, remote roles advertise a 28.1% higher median than onsite roles. The posting sample expanded in October, so changes in the raw median, the remote gap, and posting counts may partly reflect sample mix rather than market movement.
Who this is for
HR and compensation professionals who need to know what employers are offering in the hiring market right now, not what last year's survey said.
Why it matters
Raw medians and shares move with the mix of postings in the sample, and that sample expanded this period. The matched-title figure holds the title mix constant, which makes it the signal to use when refreshing ranges.
Key fact
Across 969,388 deduplicated, pay-bearing US job postings from 106,647 employers, advertised pay for the same 441 job titles was flat (0.0%) compared with the prior 90 days (SalaryCube Data Lab, November 2026).
Key numbers at a glance
| Measure (90 days ending Oct 31, 2026) | Value | Prior 90 days | October report | August report |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Matched-title advertised pay change | 0.0% (441 titles) | the like-for-like figure | 0.0% (406 titles) | +0.5% (408 titles) |
| Median advertised base pay, US, all industries | $70,000 | $75,152 | $71,136 | $74,340 |
| Postings advertising a true salary range | 73.0% | n/a | 72.1% | 71.1% |
| Median advertised range width | 24.2% of midpoint | n/a | 24.0% | 24.4% |
| Postings quoting an hourly or periodic rate | 53.1% | n/a | 51.5% | 49.5% |
| Remote share of advertised jobs (where stated) | 26.9% | 30.8% | 26.3% | 28.8% |
| Remote vs onsite advertised pay gap | +28.1% | +37.9% | +30.6% | +35.8% |
| New pay-bearing postings added, last 30 days | 513,947 | n/a | 410,104 | 133,893 |
Only the matched-title row is a like-for-like comparison. The other rows are snapshots of a sample that changed size, so the columns are not a market trend. Each report also covers a rolling 90-day window: this window shares 59 of its 90 days with the October report and 22 with the August report.
What happened to advertised pay in the last 90 days?
The matched-title change is the headline. Across 441 job titles with enough postings in both windows to compare fairly (172,810 postings in the current window), the median change in advertised pay was 0.0%. Of those 441 titles, 209 rose, 186 fell, and 46 were unchanged, so the flat reading reflects roughly balanced moves rather than pay standing still. The reading was 0.0% in the October report and +0.5% in the August report. It holds the title mix constant, so adding more postings of a different kind of job does not move it the way it moves a raw median. It does not hold the employer mix constant, so it is the best movement figure here rather than a perfect one.
The median advertised base pay across all US industries was $70,000 (25th percentile $45,000, 75th percentile $117,500). The prior 90-day window, May 5 through August 2, had a median of $75,152, 6.9% higher. We do not read that as a pay decline. A raw median moves when the mix of titles, employers, and job boards changes, and the sample changed this period. Hourly and periodic-rate roles, which anchor the low end of the annualized pay distribution, were 53.1% of pay-bearing postings.
For comp teams, the practical read comes from the matched-title line: +0.5%, 0.0%, and 0.0% across three releases. Market movement for a given role looks flat to very slightly positive on that measure, and the $70,000 raw median should not be cited as evidence of pay cuts. Both figures describe what employers advertised through October 31, and neither is a prediction. The quarterly SalaryCube US Advertised Pay Index for Q3 2026 tracks the like-for-like figure on its own. For a walkthrough of how percentile-based benchmarks work, see our explainer on what the 75th percentile means in salary.
How many employers post a real salary range?
73.0% of pay-transparent postings advertise a true range; 27.0% list a single rate. The figure was 72.1% in the October report and 71.1% in the August report, but with a larger sample, that small difference is not evidence that employers changed their practice. Among postings with a range, the median range spans 24.2% of its midpoint, within the 24.0% to 24.4% band of the two earlier reports.
Seniority still changes the picture. Executive postings advertise a range 86.2% of the time, Director postings 82.3%, and Manager postings 81.9%, while individual-contributor postings do so 71.0% of the time. Range width is consistent by level: 22.2% of midpoint for Director roles, 24.0% for individual contributors, 25.0% for Manager roles, and 26.1% for Executive roles.
For employers in pay-transparency states, this is the compliance benchmark to know: about 27 in 100 pay-transparent postings in this sample still advertise a single number, and a range near a quarter of its midpoint remains the norm. Teams building ranges from scratch can see how defensible ranges are constructed in Range Builder.
How much of US hiring is hourly?
53.1% of pay-bearing US postings in this sample quoted an hourly or other periodic rate rather than an annual salary, compared with 51.5% in the October report and 49.5% in the August report. Those differences may reflect which postings are in the expanded sample as well as what employers are hiring for. Either way, more than half of the postings here are hourly, which is the single biggest reason all-industries data behaves differently from tech-only datasets, where hourly pay barely exists.
The state spread remains wide. Wisconsin (64.7%), Indiana (64.4%), Vermont (61.9%), New Hampshire (61.9%), and Maine (61.7%) advertise hourly most often. Washington DC is again the outlier at the other end at 28.8%, followed by Virginia (43.2%), New York (45.5%), Maryland (45.8%), and Alabama (46.0%).
Where does the same job pay most and least?
Three deliberately non-technical roles show how much geography moves advertised pay. National medians over the trailing 180 days: HR Generalist $72,500 (1,748 postings), Staff Accountant $70,000 (1,318 postings), Maintenance Technician $54,080 (11,107 postings). All three national figures match the October report, and only Maintenance Technician differs from August ($54,569). Cells marked with an asterisk are directional (30 to 99 postings).
| Role | Highest-paying states (median) | Lowest-paying states (median) |
|---|---|---|
| Staff Accountant | CA $74,880 · NY $74,000* · WA $72,800* | FL $65,000* · PA $66,250* · TX $67,500* |
| HR Generalist | CA $78,500 · WA $77,730* · NC $75,460* · NJ $75,460* | OH $63,860* · FL $65,000* · GA $65,000* |
| Maintenance Technician | KY $62,400 · SC $62,169 · NE $60,320* | ID $45,760* · FL $47,840 · MS $48,750* |
A Staff Accountant posting in California advertises about 15% more than the same title in Florida. An HR Generalist posting in California advertises about 23% more than one in Ohio. A Maintenance Technician posting in Kentucky advertises about 36% more than one in Idaho. Teams pricing roles across locations can benchmark any of the roles above against live data in Bigfoot Live.
Do remote jobs still pay more, and is remote hiring shrinking?
Yes on the first, in advertised terms. This period's data cannot answer the second. Among postings that state a work arrangement (about 4 in 10 do), remote roles advertise a median of $102,500 against $80,000 for onsite roles, a 28.1% gap, and hybrid roles advertise $105,000. The gap is a difference in what is advertised, not a like-for-like premium: it partly reflects which kinds of jobs go remote.
Do not read the change in that gap as a trend. It was +37.9% in the prior window, but the onsite sample grew from 139,525 postings to 224,347 (up 61%) while the remote sample grew from 95,301 to 108,085 (up 13%). The onsite median's rise from $72,540 to $80,000 may reflect a change in which postings are in the sample rather than employers raising onsite pay, and that rise is what narrowed the gap.
The same caution applies to remote's share of advertised jobs, which was 26.9% in this window, 30.8% in the prior window, 26.3% in the October report, and 28.8% in the August report. When onsite postings grow faster than remote postings, remote's share falls whether or not employers changed anything. Roughly one in four postings that state an arrangement is remote, and that is as far as these figures go. If your retention case for remote or hybrid flexibility depends on a direction in this number, it needs another source.
How fresh is this data?
Bigfoot Live added 513,947 new pay-bearing postings in the 30 days ending October 31, 2026, compared with 410,104 in the October report and 133,893 in the August report. These are intake counts, not a measure of hiring demand, and they are affected by the expanded sample. Counted by posting date instead of by when a posting was added, the three reports show 353,819, 402,735, and 505,129.
13.4% of the trailing 12-month corpus (3,769,126 postings) is dated in the last 30 days. Of the 3,492 job titles tracked continuously, 90.9% received at least one new posting in the last 30 days. The all-time count of pay-bearing US postings reached 4,540,324 from 228,786 employers. Annual salary surveys refresh once a year; Bigfoot Live ingests new postings daily.
Which sectors are moving?
Treat this release's sector readings as provisional. On a matched-title basis across 18 sectors with enough volume to compare (sector classification covers 99.9% of postings), 9 rose, 8 were exactly flat, and 1 fell; in the October report, 10 of 17 were flat. Matched-title figures hold the title mix constant within a sector, but an expanded sample can still change which employers sit behind those titles, so a single release's move is not yet a sector trend. Energy, Utilities & Environment appears for the first time, which may itself reflect the larger sample.
| Sector (matched-title change) | November | October report | August report |
|---|---|---|---|
| Energy, Utilities & Environment | +4.7% | not published | not published |
| Aerospace & Defense | +4.4% | +6.0% | +6.0% |
| Professional & Business Services | +2.6% | 0.0% | -0.5% |
| Transportation & Logistics | +2.3% | -0.2% | 0.0% |
| Agriculture, Food & Beverage Production | +1.5% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Healthcare & Life Sciences | +1.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Manufacturing & Industrial | +1.1% | +1.9% | 0.0% |
| Technology & Software | +1.0% | +1.8% | +1.4% |
| Consumer & Personal Services | +0.7% | +0.8% | +3.1% |
| Nonprofit & Social Services | -0.4% | +0.9% | -1.6% |
The eight flat sectors were Automotive & Mobility, Construction & Trades, Education, Financial Services & Insurance, Hospitality, Food Service & Travel, Real Estate & Property, Retail & Consumer Goods, and Staffing & Recruiting. Aerospace & Defense is the only sector with a reading above 4% in all three reports.
Raw sector medians are more exposed to sample mix than the matched-title figures. Healthcare & Life Sciences, the largest sector by postings, had a raw median of $62,088 against $68,640 in the prior window, while its matched-title change was +1.1%. The matched-title figure is the one to use: the lower raw median does not mean lower pay for the same roles.
How did the posting sample change this period?
The sample expanded. Bigfoot Live took in more postings each month from August through October 2026, with October the largest month, and the sample sizes behind the three reports differ:
| Sample size | August report | October report | November report |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pay-bearing postings in the 90-day window | 828,050 | 857,229 | 969,388 |
| Employers in the 90-day window | 85,442 | 94,588 | 106,647 |
| Postings stating a work arrangement | 318,389 | 346,465 | 402,247 |
| Onsite postings | 154,209 | 187,461 | 224,347 |
| Remote postings | 91,738 | 91,081 | 108,085 |
| Hybrid postings | 72,442 | 67,923 | 69,815 |
| All-time pay-bearing postings | 3,551,342 | 4,000,510 | 4,540,324 |
Within this report, the current window holds 969,388 postings against 812,979 in the prior window. The growth built over several months rather than arriving in a single jump, so we cannot draw a clean line between an old sample and a new one. Treat any change in a raw median, share, or count in this report as possibly reflecting, at least in part, who is in the sample rather than a change in what employers are doing.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the average advertised salary in the US in 2026?
The median advertised base pay across all US industries was $70,000 in the 90 days ending October 31, 2026, based on 969,388 pay-bearing employer job postings. The 25th percentile was $45,000 and the 75th percentile was $117,500. This is advertised pay in job postings, not average earnings of current employees. The posting sample expanded in October 2026, so compare it with earlier medians cautiously.
Are salaries going up or down in 2026?
On a like-for-like basis, advertised pay was flat (0.0%) compared with the prior 90 days across 441 matched job titles. The matched-title figure was 0.0% in the October report and +0.5% in the August report. The raw national median was 6.9% below the prior window, but a raw median moves with the mix of postings, and the sample expanded this period, so it is not evidence of pay cuts. These figures describe advertised pay to date and are not a forecast.
What percentage of job postings include a salary range?
73.0% of pay-transparent US postings advertise a true range; 27.0% list a single rate. Senior roles get ranges more often: 86.2% of Executive postings and 82.3% of Director postings include a range, versus 71.0% of individual-contributor postings. The median advertised range spans 24.2% of its midpoint.
Do remote jobs pay more than onsite jobs in 2026?
Yes, in advertised terms. Among postings that state a work arrangement, remote roles advertise a median of $102,500 versus $80,000 for onsite roles, a 28.1% gap, and hybrid roles advertise $105,000. The gap partly reflects which kinds of jobs go remote. Remote was 26.9% of postings that state an arrangement. Onsite postings grew much faster than remote postings in an expanded sample, so changes in the gap and the share should not be read as a trend.
Where does SalaryCube's salary data come from?
Bigfoot Live draws on multilayered US sources, including live job postings, public filings, and direct client participation, updated daily. The statistics in this report are computed specifically from the job-postings layer: 4.5 million+ pay-bearing US postings collected to date, with 513,947 added in the last 30 days. Full details are on the data methodology page.
How to cite this report
Cite as: SalaryCube Data Lab, "US Advertised Pay Report, November 2026," salarycube.com/data-lab. Figures may be republished with attribution and a link. All releases, the latest numbers, and citation guidance live on the Data Lab hub. Journalists and researchers who want cuts not shown here can reach us via the contact page.
Where do these numbers come from?
All figures are advertised pay from US employer job postings, computed from the job-postings layer of SalaryCube's Bigfoot Live engine for the 90 days ending October 31, 2026, compared with the prior 90 days. Postings with the same title, employer, location, and pay figures are counted once. Hourly and other periodic rates are annualized at 2,080 hours. Where a posting lists a range, its midpoint is used. An outlier fence removes mis-parsed figures. No statistic is published from fewer than 30 postings and 5 employers, and no single employer contributes more than half of any published cell; state and title cells built on 30 to 99 postings are labeled directional. Sector figures use employer-level sector classification. Full details, including what feeds Bigfoot Live and what these numbers can and cannot tell you, are on our data methodology page.
What changed in the data this period: The posting sample expanded. Bigfoot Live took in more postings each month from August through October 2026, with October the largest month (969,388 postings in this window, 857,229 in the October report, 828,050 in the August report). The definitions and methodology version did not change. The growth built over several months, so we cannot separate an old sample from a new one. Quote the matched-title change for movement, and treat changes in raw medians, shares, and counts as possibly reflecting sample mix.
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