use strict; use warnings; use Data::Dumper; my %rankBased = ( q{191} => { test1 => { score => 9.18 }, test2 => { score => 2.84 }, test3 => { score => 15.62 }, test4 => { score => 11.84 }, }, q{190} => { test1 => { score => 13.28 }, test2 => { score => -47.56 }, test3 => { score => 18.50 }, test4 => { score => 14.88 }, }, ); my %sortedByRank; foreach my $key ( keys %rankBased ) { $sortedByRank{ $key } = [ map { { $_ => { score => $rankBased{ $key }->{ $_ }->{ score } } } } sort { $rankBased{ $key }->{ $b }->{ score } <=> $rankBased{ $key }->{ $a }->{ score } } keys %{ $rankBased{ $key } } ]; } print Data::Dumper->Dumpxs( [ \ %sortedByRank ], [ qw{ *sortedByRank } ] );