Excel appears in more than four in ten live accounting postings and, within the same role, is worth nothing measurable. SOX appears in about one in twenty and is worth roughly twenty thousand dollars. Every premium here is measured inside a single canonical role, so it is not just re-measuring seniority.
Every number is measured from real job postings tracked across the US, Canada, and remote markets. Thin samples are suppressed rather than estimated, and Canadian pay stays in Canadian dollars.
For each role, the median advertised pay of postings naming a skill against the median for the same role without it, requiring 25 priced postings on each side; the published figure is the median of those per-role gaps across at least four roles. This is an association measured from postings, not proof that learning a skill causes a raise: a posting naming Workday is usually a larger-employer posting, and larger employers pay more for reasons beyond Workday.
| Skill | Share of postings (%) | Postings naming it | Median without | Median with | Within-role premium | Roles measured |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SOX | 5.4 | 2,770 | $121,900 | $133,394 | $13,250 | 12 |
| NetSuite | 3.8 | 1,963 | $80,000 | $88,250 | $10,425 | 6 |
| GAAP | 15.6 | 8,009 | $111,875 | $123,250 | $5,300 | 18 |
| Oracle | 5.6 | 2,875 | $90,000 | $97,500 | $5,200 | 13 |
| SAP | 9.1 | 4,696 | $90,000 | $99,500 | $1,850 | 17 |
| Workday | 4.3 | 2,216 | $77,520 | $83,500 | $1,386 | 8 |
| CPA | 20 | 10,317 | $126,400 | $129,300 | $1,275 | 28 |
| SQL | 2.6 | 1,324 | $108,240 | $109,450 | $1,210 | 6 |
| Power BI | 4.1 | 2,089 | $111,250 | $103,745 | $-640 | 8 |
| QuickBooks | 3.6 | 1,874 | $62,358 | $59,430 | $-2,090 | 10 |
| Enrolled Agent | 1.1 | 575 | $115,750 | $113,250 | $-2,500 | 4 |
| Excel | 40.3 | 20,746 | $92,538 | $86,025 | $-4,250 | 46 |