How to Calculate the Median by Group in Excel

The following step-by-step example shows how to calculate the median value by group in Excel.

Step 1: Enter the Data

First, let’s enter the following dataset that shows the total points scored by various basketball players:

Now suppose we’d like to find the median value of the points scored, grouped by team.

To do so, we can use the UNIQUE() function to first create a list of the unique teams.

We’ll type the following formula into cell E2:

=UNIQUE(B2:B12)

Once we press Enter, a list of unique team names will be displayed:

Next, we can use the following formula to find the median value of points scored by players on each team:

=MEDIAN(IF($B$2:$B$12=E2, $C$2:$C$12))

We’ll type this formula into cell F2 and copy and paste it down to each remaining cell in column F:

Column E displays each of the unique teams and column F displays the median value of the points scored by each team.

From the output we can see:

We can verify these results are correct by manually calculating the median for one of the teams.

For example, the points scored by players on the Spurs team is: 14, 28, 33, 35

The median value would be the value directly in the middle of 28 and 33, which is 30.5.

This matches the value calculated using the formula.

The following tutorials explain how to perform other common tasks in Excel: