---
title: "Police Officer"
description: "Maintain order and protect life and property by enforcing local, tribal, state, or federal laws and ordinances. Perform a combination of the following…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/police-officer"
last-updated: "2026-08-23T15:56:39.581Z"
---

# Police Officer

**Category:** Protective Service · **SOC code:** 33-3051 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 33-3051.00

Maintain order and protect life and property by enforcing local, tribal, state, or federal laws and ordinances. Perform a combination of the following duties: patrol a specific area; direct traffic; issue traffic summonses; investigate accidents; apprehend and arrest suspects, or serve legal processes of courts. Includes police officers working at educational institutions.

Also advertised as: Deputy; Deputy Sheriff; Law Enforcement Officer; Patrol Deputy; Patrol Officer; Peace Officer; Police Officer; Police Patrol Officer.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $76,210 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $36.64/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $47,510 to $115,120, with the middle half between $59,290 and $97,600
- **Total US employment:** 670,520
- **Typical entry education:** High school
- **Preparation required:** Some preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +3.1% over 2024–2034 (BLS EP, 2024–2034)
- **Annual job openings:** 53,700 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 63/100 — 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 670,520 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $47,510 |
| 25th | $59,290 |
| 50th (median) | $76,210 |
| 75th | $97,600 |
| 90th | $115,120 |
| Mean (average) | $79,200 |

### 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 | $118,880 | $107,370 | 65,940 |
| WA | $102,080 | $95,390 | 9,160 |
| IL | $100,520 | $100,562 | 29,180 |
| AK | $99,130 | $96,845 | 1,260 |
| CO | $97,350 | $94,467 | 9,610 |
| DE | $92,970 | $93,149 | 1,800 |
| NY | $92,790 | $85,980 | 53,470 |
| NJ | $92,610 | $85,116 | 21,780 |
| DC | $88,650 | $80,664 | 4,720 |
| OR | $88,140 | $85,274 | 5,030 |
| PA | $85,470 | $87,597 | 26,510 |
| HI | $83,820 | $76,234 | 2,420 |
| MN | $83,360 | $84,526 | 9,160 |
| CT | $82,170 | $79,307 | 6,500 |
| MA | $78,940 | $74,643 | 17,040 |

38 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 53 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/police-officer/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/police-officer.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 698,800 in the 2024–2034 base year to 720,800 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 22,000 jobs, or +3.1%. About as fast as average: 3.1% against 3.1% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 53,700 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2024–2034.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** High school diploma or equivalent (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.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| High School Diploma | 40.4% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 21.3% |
| Associate's Degree (or other 2-year degree) | 17.1% |
| Some College Courses | 14.7% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 6.6% |

## What the work involves

- Provide for public safety by maintaining order, responding to emergencies, protecting people and property, enforcing motor vehicle and criminal laws, and promoting good community relations.
- Monitor, note, report, and investigate suspicious persons and situations, safety hazards, and unusual or illegal activity in patrol area.
- Investigate traffic accidents and other accidents to determine causes and to determine if a crime has been committed.
- Direct traffic flow and reroute traffic in case of emergencies.
- Monitor traffic to ensure motorists observe traffic regulations and exhibit safe driving procedures.
- Record facts to prepare reports that document incidents and activities.
- Photograph or draw diagrams of crime or accident scenes and interview principals and eyewitnesses.
- Render aid to accident survivors and other persons requiring first aid for physical injuries.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- 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
- Active Learning — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.3 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.

- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.3 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 4.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Psychology — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Inductive Reasoning — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 3.9 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), Enterprising (E).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 5.36 |
| C — Conventional | 4.35 |
| E — Enterprising | 4.08 |
| S — Social | 3.45 |
| I — Investigative | 2.76 |
| A — Artistic | 1.07 |

### 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) |
| --- | --- |
| ESTJ | 85.4 |
| ISTJ | 83.4 |
| ISFJ | 75.7 |
| ESFJ | 71.2 |
| ESTP | 66.3 |

Best-fitting types: ESTJ, ISTJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Detective and Criminal Investigator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/detective-and-criminal-investigator) — median $93,790
- [First-Line Supervisor of Police and Detectives](https://nuecareer.com/careers/first-line-supervisor-of-police-and-detectives) — median $106,040
- [Transit and Railroad Police](https://nuecareer.com/careers/transit-and-railroad-police) — median $90,230
- [Bailiff](https://nuecareer.com/careers/bailiff) — median $56,600
- [Private Detective and Investigator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/private-detective-and-investigator) — median $51,220
- [Probation Officer and Correctional Treatment Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/probation-officer-and-correctional-treatment-specialist) — median $66,270
- [Correctional Officer and Jailer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/correctional-officer-and-jailer) — median $58,940
- [First-Line Supervisor of Correctional Officers](https://nuecareer.com/careers/first-line-supervisor-of-correctional-officers) — median $77,970
- [Security Guard](https://nuecareer.com/careers/security-guard) — median $38,020
- [Custom and Border Protection Officer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/custom-and-border-protection-officer) — median $76,210

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 30.3 Database, May 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, 2024–2034. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2024–2034 edition. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/
- **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 30.3 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/police-officer