We know that job titles can be misleading. A "Manager" in one company might be a "Department Head" in another, making it difficult to ensure you are truly comparing like-for-like data.
To solve this, we are introducing HR DataHub Levelling—a new framework designed to help you understand the true impact and seniority of a role, regardless of its title. By assessing jobs based on their actual responsibilities, you can now benchmark pay against roles at the right level with total confidence.
What is the Levelling Framework? 🏗️
Our framework evaluates every job in our dataset across four key dimensions rather than relying on salary or seniority alone:
Autonomy: The degree of supervision required and decision-making authority.
Scope: The boundary of the role's impact, from individual tasks to enterprise-wide outcomes.
Complexity: The nature of the problems solved, from routine tasks to strategic, long-term vision.
Accountability: What the role is answerable for, such as team size, budgets, or P&L.
Parallel Tracks: IC vs. People Leader 🛤️
We recognise that specialists are just as valuable as managers. Our framework uses two parallel tracks so you can compare roles fairly:
Individual Contributor (IC): Deep specialists and technical authorities who influence through expertise.
People Leader: Those who influence through team output and management.
This allows a Principal Engineer and an Engineering Manager to sit at the same level if their scope and impact align, ensuring you can pay specialists competitively without forcing them into management.
The 6 Levels at a Glance 🔍
Our framework breaks roles down into six clear levels:
Level | Title Indicator | Core Criteria |
1 | Entry | Learning role with close supervision and individual tasks. |
2 | Supervisor / Associate | Works independently on a defined scope with some guidance. |
3 | Manager / Proficient | Fully competent, autonomous, and may informally guide others. |
4 | Senior Manager / Expert | Deep expertise or team management; solves ambiguous problems. |
5 | Head / Principal | Leads functions or large teams; shapes business unit strategy. |
6 | Director / Executive | Accountable for business units, P&L, and organisational direction. |
Key Features You’ll Love ✨
Filter by Level: Narrow your search results to roles that genuinely match the seniority of the position you are benchmarking.
Framework Mapping: Our levels cross-reference directly with popular frameworks like WTW Global Grades, Mercer IPE, Hay Points, and Radford.
Note - this work-across can be accessed by clicking the "i" next to the level header in the results table.
Confidence Scoring: Every level comes with a transparency indicator (High, Medium, or Low) so you know exactly how much to trust the data based on the quality of the original job spec.
Hover over any role's level assessment to view the confidence + level descriptor.
How it Works 🤖
We use an advanced language model to analyse job descriptions for patterns that match our levels. This model was built using a manually levelled training set to ensure the highest possible accuracy.
Pro Tip: If a job description is vague, our system defaults to a lower confidence score and utilises "boundary tests" (like "Can they work unsupervised for a full day?") to determine the most accurate level.
What’s Next? 🚀
This is just the beginning! While you can currently filter and view levels within the platform, we are working on a "fast follow" release that will allow you to run your own internal job specs through our levelling system for instant matching.
Need more help? Contact our support team or check out our upcoming webinar on mastering the levelling filters!