Select highest salary in MySQL?

For this, you can use MAX(). The syntax is as follows −

select MAX(yourColumnName) AS anyAliasName from yourTableName;

Let us create a table −

mysql> create table demo44
−> (
−> employee_id int not null auto_increment primary key,
−> employee_name varchar(20),
−> employee_salary int
−> )
−> ;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (1.27 sec)

Insert some records into the table with the help of insert command −

mysql> insert into demo44(employee_name,employee_salary) values('John',3000);
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.13 sec)

mysql> insert into demo44(employee_name,employee_salary) values('David',4500);
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.12 sec)

mysql> insert into demo44(employee_name,employee_salary) values('Bob',3500);
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.12 sec)

mysql> insert into demo44(employee_name,employee_salary) values('Carol',5500);
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.15 sec)

mysql> insert into demo44(employee_name,employee_salary) values('Mike',4900);
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.13 sec)

Display records from the table using select statement −

mysql> select *from demo44;

This will produce the following output −

+-------------+---------------+-----------------+
| employee_id | employee_name | employee_salary |
+-------------+---------------+-----------------+
| 1           | John          | 3000            |
| 2           | David         | 4500            |
| 3           | Bob           | 3500            |
| 4           | Carol         | 5500            |
| 5           | Mike          | 4900            |
+-------------+---------------+-----------------+
5 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Following is the query to select highest salary −

mysql> select MAX(employee_salary) AS Highest_Salary from demo44;

This will produce the following output −

+----------------+
| Highest_Salary |
+----------------+
|           5500 |
+----------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)