Cte in some situations with really long DT can help readability, but this is not the case here. Some folks (ab)use cte in every statement because they don't know how to write DT. They do not have freedom (or knowledge) to choose between two. You have, and that's good, but original poster maybe would learn cte without knowing dt, and start to write everything as cte. Not because he decided he likes cte better, but because he doesn't know how to write regular dt, and thus cannot choose. It turns that many tsql beginners don't, unfortunately.