Protective Service: pay for 24 occupations, May 2025

In short

• Highest median pay in this field: First-Line Supervisors of Police and Detectives, $106,040 a year.
• Lowest: Lifeguards, Ski Patrol, and Other Recreational Protective Service Workers, $33,580 a year.
• Most jobs: Security Guards (1,283,470), Police and Sheriff's Patrol Officers (670,520) and Correctional Officers and Jailers (380,500).
• For comparison, the median for all occupations in the country was $50,980 a year.

Sorted by median pay, highest first. "Not published" in the yearly or hourly column means BLS releases only the other one for that occupation.

The field as a whole

Protective Service holds 3,776,610 of the 155,495,730 jobs in the national figures, about 2 in every 100. Its median pay of $50,080 a year is about the same as the median for all occupations ($50,980), which places it number 13 of the 22 fields. Across the whole field, the lowest-paid tenth earned less than $32,850 and the highest-paid tenth more than $102,470; the middle half earned between $37,350 and $75,990. The average was $60,720, 21% above the median.

Inside the field

Inside the field, the best-paid occupation with a published yearly median earns 3.2 times the lowest ($106,040 against $33,580). 16 of the 24 occupations with a yearly median are above the national median of $50,980, and 8 are below it. The occupation in the middle of the field's list is Forest Fire Inspectors and Prevention Specialists, at $56,870. Jobs are unevenly spread: the three largest occupations hold 62% of the field's jobs, while the smallest, Forest Fire Inspectors and Prevention Specialists, has 2,780. Pay stretches furthest within Bailiffs, where the highest-paid tenth earn over $96,770 and the lowest-paid tenth under $32,140.

Reading the field

Pay also moves with place. For the field's largest occupation, Security Guards, the state medians run from $21,840 in Puerto Rico to $64,210 in District of Columbia; its own page has every state. The Bureau of Labor Statistics sorts every occupation into one field by the work done, not by the industry of the employer, so an accountant at a hospital is counted under business and financial operations, not health care.

Questions about this field

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. Checked in November 2026. Figures are for employees, before tax, and leave out overtime pay and benefits. They are official statistics, not advice or a pay offer; see bls.gov/oes for the original tables.

All fields