---
title: "Law Enforcement Park Ranger"
description: "A commissioned ranger who enforces laws, responds to emergencies, and protects visitors and resources in national and state parks."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/law-enforcement-park-ranger"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Law Enforcement Park Ranger

**Category:** Protective Service · **SOC code:** 33-3031 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 33-3031.00

A commissioned ranger who enforces laws, responds to emergencies, and protects visitors and resources in national and state parks.

Also advertised as: Protection Ranger; Commissioned Park Ranger; Seasonal Law Enforcement Ranger; Park Police Ranger; Federal Park Ranger.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $74,060 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $35.60/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $50,990 to $100,980, with the middle half between $61,430 and $89,110
- **Total US employment:** 5,770
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Some preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** -5.7% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 500 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 51/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 5,770 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $50,990 |
| 25th | $61,430 |
| 50th (median) | $74,060 |
| 75th | $89,110 |
| 90th | $100,980 |
| Mean (average) | $74,950 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| CA | $100,090 | $90,399 | 330 |
| IA | $98,260 | $111,962 | 120 |
| IN | $93,990 | $100,708 | 170 |
| NV | $91,750 | $91,769 | 50 |
| MD | $89,300 | $85,081 | 60 |
| WI | $89,110 | $94,702 | 150 |
| MI | $87,460 | $90,899 | 210 |
| TX | $85,980 | $88,587 | 490 |
| NY | $80,060 | $74,184 | 390 |
| ND | $79,520 | $89,389 | 30 |
| GA | $79,440 | $82,498 | 200 |
| TN | $75,930 | $82,649 | 220 |
| OH | $75,880 | $81,790 | 160 |
| VT | $74,940 | $76,502 | 40 |
| AL | $74,290 | $83,638 | 160 |

20 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 35 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/law-enforcement-park-ranger/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/law-enforcement-park-ranger.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 6,200 in the 2025–2035 base year to 5,800 by the end of the cycle — a loss of 400 jobs, or -5.7%. Declining: -5.7% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 500 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's degree (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Some preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Moderate-term on-the-job training.

## What the work involves

- Patrol park roads, trails, campgrounds, and backcountry
- Enforce laws and park regulations and make arrests
- Respond to medical emergencies and vehicle accidents
- Conduct search and rescue operations
- Investigate crimes and resource violations such as poaching
- Assist and educate visitors
- Write incident reports and testify in court

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Speaking — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Analysis — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operations Monitoring — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Public Safety and Security — importance 4.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Law and Government — importance 4.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Telecommunications — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Psychology — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Inductive Reasoning — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Realistic (R), Conventional (C), Investigative (I).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 6.40 |
| C — Conventional | 4.24 |
| I — Investigative | 3.91 |
| E — Enterprising | 3.67 |
| S — Social | 3.41 |
| A — Artistic | 1.00 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ISTJ | 86.7 |
| ESTJ | 77.8 |
| ISTP | 73.6 |
| ISFJ | 71.7 |
| ESTP | 66.4 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Fish and Game Warden](https://nuecareer.com/careers/fish-and-game-warden) — median $74,060
- [Range Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/range-manager) — median $73,010
- [Animal Control Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/animal-control-worker) — median $45,660
- [Conservation Scientist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/conservation-scientist) — median $73,010
- [Forest and Conservation Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/forest-and-conservation-technician) — median $54,560
- [Forest and Conservation Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/forest-and-conservation-worker) — median $43,680
- [Forest Fire Inspector and Prevention Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/forest-fire-inspector-and-prevention-specialist) — median $56,870
- [Park Naturalist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/park-naturalist) — median $73,010
- [Fishing and Hunting Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/fishing-and-hunting-worker) — median Not published by BLS
- [Environmental Compliance Inspector](https://nuecareer.com/careers/environmental-compliance-inspector) — median $80,730

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/law-enforcement-park-ranger