How to calculate the percentile and quartile of a set of numbers in Excel?

In our daily studying or working, you may be required to calculate a specific number based on some criteria. For instance, with a set of incomes, and what the job is to find the number that 30 percent of incomes entered are less than as the screenshot shown. In this case, we need to apply PERCENTILE and QUARTILE formulas in Excel.

Percentile function

Quartile function

Percentile function

You can do as below to apply a PERCENTILE function.

Select a blank cell, enter this formula =PERCENTILE(A1:A10,0.3), press Enter key, now you can see 30 percent of the entered incomes are lower than 3700. See screenshot:

Note:

1. In the formula, A1:A10 is the set of incomes you want to use, 0.3 indicates to find the number that 30 percent of incomes are lower than, you can change them as you need.

2. The second argument of the PERCENTILE function must be a decimal number between 0 and 1.

Quartile function

With QUARTILE function, you also can find number that the top 25 percent of incomes in the list are greater than.

Select a blank cell, enter this formula =QUARTILE(A1:A10,3), press Enter key, now you can find that 75 percent of the entered incomes are lower than 6750, which also means that 25 percent of entered incomes are higher than 6750. See screenshot:

Notes:

1. In the above formula, A1:A10 is the set of incomes you use, 3 indicates to find the number that 75 percent of incomes are lower than. You can change them as you need.

2. The second argument of the QUARTILE function must be a whole number between 0 and 4.