Police and Sheriff's Patrol Officers Salary and Pay

The national wage ladder (BLS OEWS, May 2024)

The five rows are five different workers in the same occupation, from the 10th percentile ($47,640) to the 90th ($115,280). BLS suppresses cells that fail its reliability rules (n/p here) and caps the highest wages at $239,200+ a year or $115.00+ an hour; in this ladder that top code appears at the very top rows only.

Employment and concentration

With 666,990 jobs nationally, Police and Sheriff's Patrol Officers make up 0.43% of U.S. employment as BLS measured it in May 2024. The map is uneven: California alone holds 65,170 of those jobs, the top three states hold 27.3%, and the deepest concentration sits in Louisiana (location quotient 1.73, where 1.00 is the national average). A quotient above 2 usually signals a local industry cluster rather than evenly spread demand.

Pay inside the occupation is wide: $67,640 separates the ends of its ladder. The 90th percentile ($115,280) is 2.4 times the 10th percentile ($47,640), a gap of $67,640 a year. The mean of $79,320 sitting above the median of $76,290 tells you the top end pulls the average up: most workers cluster below the mean, and the high tail is thin.

Pay by state

The state spread for Police and Sheriff's Patrol Officers runs from the $115,400 median in California down through every other publishing state. Employment concentrates in California (65,170 jobs). The complete table:

The occupation in context

Ranked against all 826 published occupations, Police and Sheriff's Patrol Officers stands number 56 by employment and number 247 by median pay. Inside its own major group, Protective Service Occupations, the group median wage is $58,610 across 24 detailed occupations, so this occupation pays 30% more than its group median, and it supplies 18.2% of the group's 3,654,920 jobs. In 23 of the 51 states with a published median, the state median beats the national median of $76,290, which is the single best quick test of whether this occupation's pay is set nationally or locally: a high count means local markets regularly outbid the national figure.

Metropolitan areas: where the jobs and the pay sit

New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ is the largest metro employer with 54,830 jobs, 8.2% of the national total. Two rankings follow across the 390 metros BLS publishes for this occupation: where the jobs are, then where the money is, with the pay ranking restricted to metros employing at least 500 people in this occupation to keep small samples out of the lead.

Largest metro employers

Highest-paying metros (500+ jobs)

At the other end, San Juan-Bayamon-Caguas, PR posts the lowest mean pay among metros with at least 500 jobs, $42,350 a year, against $145,310 in San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA. The lowest-paying large metro and the highest are both real markets for this occupation; the difference between them is the geography premium, or penalty, in cash terms.

What the median pay looks like as a budget

The median annual wage of $76,290 works out to $6,358 a month before taxes, $2,934 per biweekly paycheck, and $1,467 a week. Moving from the 25th percentile ($58,980) to the 75th ($97,190) is worth $38,210 a year, which is the realistic size of the experience and specialization premium inside this occupation. Run the median through the paycheck calculator for a take-home estimate in your state, compare an offer against your current pay with the salary calculator, and check whether a raise actually beats prices with the raise vs inflation calculator.

To place a real offer: a salary of $83,919 would sit between the median ($76,290) and the 75th percentile ($97,190), inside the top half but outside the top quarter of this occupation's ladder. An offer at the 25th percentile, $58,980, is $17,310 under the median, the typical size of the discount attached to entry-level or low-cost-market postings in this field.

Related occupations in Protective Service Occupations

Compare the ladder above with the closest relatives in the survey: Firefighters, First-Line Supervisors of Police and Detectives, Lifeguards, Ski Patrol, and Other Recreational Protective Service Workers, Detectives and Criminal Investigators, First-Line Supervisors of Firefighting and Prevention Workers, Crossing Guards and Flaggers. The Careers hub carries the whole branch, group by group.