Write a SQL query to find the fifth highest salary. If there are ties for the highest salaries (e.g., multiple employees earning 10k), those ties should not be counted; only distinct salaries should be considered.

You can solve this with a subquery that selects distinct salaries ordered descending, then picks the fifth row. Example:

SELECT salary

FROM (

SELECT DISTINCT salary

FROM employees

ORDER BY salary DESC

) AS distinct_salaries

LIMIT 1 OFFSET 4;

Alternatively, use DENSE_RANK():

SELECT salary

FROM (

SELECT salary, DENSE_RANK() OVER (ORDER BY salary DESC) AS dr

FROM employees

) AS ranked

WHERE dr = 5;

Both queries ignore ties because DISTINCT or DENSE_RANK() collapses duplicates. The first uses LIMIT/OFFSET; the second uses a window function. Complexity is O(n log n) due to sorting.