How to calculate Deciles in Google Sheets (With Examples)

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In statistics, deciles are numbers that split a dataset into ten groups of equal frequency.

The first decile is the point where 10% of all data values lie below it.

The second decile is the point where 20% of all data values lie below it.

The third decile is the point where 30% of all data values lie below it.

And so on.

We can use the following function to calculate the deciles for a dataset in Google Sheets:

=PERCENTILE(CELL RANGE, PERCENTILE)

For example, we would use the following formula to calculate the value of the third decile for a dataset in the range A1:A50:

=PERCENTILE(A1:A50, 0.3)

The following example shows how to use this function in practice.

Example: Calculate Deciles in Google Sheets

Suppose we have the following dataset with 20 values:

The following image shows how to calculate the deciles for the dataset:

Here is how to interpret each decile value:

• 10% of all data values lie below 63.4.
• 20% of all data values lie below 67.8.
• 30% of all data values lie below 76.5.

To place each data value into a decile, we can use the PERCENTRANK.EXC() function, which uses the following syntax:

=PERCENTRANK.EXC(CELL RANGE, DATA VALUE, SIGNIFICANCE)

The following image shows how to use this function for our dataset:

Note that this function finds the relative rank of a value in a dataset as a percentage and rounds to one digit, which is equivalent to finding the decile that the value falls in.

The way to interpret the output is as follows:

• The data value 58 falls between the percentile 0 and 0.1, thus it falls in the first decile.
• The data value 64 falls between the percentile 0.1 and 0.2, thus it falls in the second decile.
• The data value 67 falls between the percentile 0.1 and 0.2, thus it falls in the second decile.
• The data value 68 falls between the percentile 0.2 and 0.3, thus it falls in the third decile.

And so on.