Find Max and Second Max Salary for MySQL Employee Table Using Subquery

You can get max and second max salary from an Employee table using subquery.

Let us first create a table. The query to create a table is as follows −

mysql> create table EmployeeMaxAndSecondMaxSalary
   -> (
   -> EmployeeId int,
   -> Employeename varchar(20),
   -> EmployeeSalary int
   -> );
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.88 sec)

Insert some records in the table using insert command −

mysql> insert into EmployeeMaxAndSecondMaxSalary values(1,'John',34566);
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.20 sec)

mysql> insert into EmployeeMaxAndSecondMaxSalary values(2,'Bob',56789);
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.17 sec)

mysql> insert into EmployeeMaxAndSecondMaxSalary values(3,'Carol',44560);
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.26 sec)

mysql> insert into EmployeeMaxAndSecondMaxSalary values(4,'Sam',76456);
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.29 sec)

mysql> insert into EmployeeMaxAndSecondMaxSalary values(5,'Mike',65566);
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.14 sec)

mysql> insert into EmployeeMaxAndSecondMaxSalary values(6,'David',89990);
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.19 sec)

mysql> insert into EmployeeMaxAndSecondMaxSalary values(7,'James',68789);
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.12 sec)

mysql> insert into EmployeeMaxAndSecondMaxSalary values(8,'Robert',76543);
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.13 sec)

Display all records from the table using select statement. The query is as follows −

mysql> select *from EmployeeMaxAndSecondMaxSalary;

The following is the output.

+------------+--------------+----------------+
| EmployeeId | Employeename | EmployeeSalary |
+------------+--------------+----------------+
|          1 | John         |          34566 |
|          2 | Bob          |          56789 |
|          3 | Carol        |          44560 |
|          4 | Sam          |          76456 |
|          5 | Mike         |          65566 |
|          6 | David        |          89990 |
|          7 | James        |          68789 |
|          8 | Robert       |          76543 |
+------------+--------------+----------------+
8 rows in set (0.00 sec)

The query to get the max and second max salary using subquery −

mysql> select (select max(EmployeeSalary) from EmployeeMaxAndSecondMaxSalary) MaximumSalary,
   -> (select max(EmployeeSalary) from EmployeeMaxAndSecondMaxSalary
   -> where EmployeeSalary not in(select max(EmployeeSalary) from
EmployeeMaxAndSecondMaxSalary)) as SecondMaximumSalary;

The following is the output displaying the top two salaries −

+---------------+---------------------+
| MaximumSalary | SecondMaximumSalary |
+---------------+---------------------+
|         89990 |               76543 |
+---------------+---------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)