---
title: "Parks and Recreation Director"
description: "Leads a city or county parks department, managing parks, trails, pools, recreation centers, programs and the staff who run them."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/parks-and-recreation-director"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Parks and Recreation Director

**Category:** Management · **SOC code:** 11-9072 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 11-9072.00

Leads a city or county parks department, managing parks, trails, pools, recreation centers, programs and the staff who run them.

Also advertised as: Director of Parks and Recreation; Parks Director; Recreation Director; Parks and Recreation Superintendent; Community Services Director.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $79,520 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $38.23/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $46,270 to $139,110, with the middle half between $61,060 and $104,770
- **Total US employment:** 37,980
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +6.0% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 5,100 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 54/100 — 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 37,980 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $46,270 |
| 25th | $61,060 |
| 50th (median) | $79,520 |
| 75th | $104,770 |
| 90th | $139,110 |
| Mean (average) | $89,750 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| DC | $113,930 | $103,666 | 30 |
| MN | $107,660 | $109,165 | 480 |
| NY | $98,390 | $91,169 | 1,330 |
| CO | $97,000 | $94,127 | 940 |
| WA | $96,790 | $90,447 | 630 |
| ID | $95,020 | $99,504 | 110 |
| VT | $92,320 | $94,244 | 270 |
| NJ | $89,590 | $82,340 | 2,260 |
| MA | $89,450 | $84,581 | 1,030 |
| WY | $88,790 | $95,791 | 70 |
| RI | $88,750 | $86,772 | 40 |
| MO | $83,620 | $92,075 | 370 |
| FL | $83,520 | $80,763 | 2,620 |
| GA | $83,470 | $86,683 | 830 |
| ME | $82,780 | $85,296 | 70 |

33 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 48 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/parks-and-recreation-director/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/parks-and-recreation-director.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 43,900 in the 2025–2035 base year to 46,500 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 2,700 jobs, or +6.0%. Faster than average: 6.0% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 5,100 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:** Medium preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** Less than 5 years.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** None.

## What the work involves

- Direct parks, recreation and facility operations
- Prepare and manage the department budget
- Plan new parks, trails and facility renovations
- Oversee recreation programs, camps and events
- Supervise staff and seasonal workers
- Pursue grants, sponsorships and partnerships
- Present plans to councils, boards and residents
- Ensure facilities are safe, maintained and accessible

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 3.1 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.

- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Public Safety and Security — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Personnel and Human Resources — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Expression — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Recognition — importance 3.8 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 Enterprising (E), Conventional (C), Social (S).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| E — Enterprising | 6.25 |
| C — Conventional | 4.89 |
| S — Social | 4.45 |
| R — Realistic | 3.86 |
| A — Artistic | 1.98 |
| I — Investigative | 1.96 |

### 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) |
| --- | --- |
| ESFJ | 86.0 |
| ESTJ | 81.7 |
| ESFP | 66.9 |
| ISFJ | 64.2 |
| ENFJ | 63.9 |

Best-fitting types: ESFJ, ESTJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Entertainment and Recreation Manager, Except Gambling](https://nuecareer.com/careers/entertainment-and-recreation-manager) — median $79,520
- [Recreation Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/recreation-worker) — median $36,560
- [Fitness and Wellness Coordinator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/fitness-and-wellness-coordinator) — median $69,770
- [Recreational Therapist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/recreational-therapist) — median $61,960
- [Park Naturalist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/park-naturalist) — median $73,010
- [General and Operations Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/general-and-operations-manager) — median $105,770
- [Recreation and Fitness Studies Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/recreation-and-fitness-studies-teacher-postsecondary) — median $77,270
- [Lodging Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/lodging-manager) — median $69,250
- [Facilities Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/facilities-manager) — median $106,660
- [Social and Community Service Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/social-and-community-service-manager) — median $80,390

## 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/parks-and-recreation-director