Drilled shafts socketed into rock transfer axial load through upper non-competent strata to lower competent bedrock, which can sustain the load. This study investigates the applicability of the existing empirical equations, which are currently in use by practicing geotechnical engineers in daily design work, to predict the skin friction capacity of drilled shafts socketed into rock using a compiled pile load tests database. The compiled database is, also, analyzed to investigate the possibility of establishing an empirical equation to improve the prediction of the side shear resistance of the socketed shafts. The proposed equation results are compared with the existing codes, different empirical equations and the field records to exhibit the adequacy of the proposed current study equation. The statistical and probabilistic tools are used in the current study to assess the prediction performance of the proposed approaches of assessing the skin friction of socketed shafts.