---
title: "Public Information Officer"
description: "Serves as the official voice of a government agency, police or fire department, briefing the media and public, especially during emergencies."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/public-information-officer"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Public Information Officer

**Category:** Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media · **SOC code:** 27-3031 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 27-3031.00

Serves as the official voice of a government agency, police or fire department, briefing the media and public, especially during emergencies.

Also advertised as: PIO; Government Communications Officer; Public Affairs Officer; Police Public Information Officer; Emergency Public Information Officer.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $74,750 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $35.94/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $44,110 to $135,150, with the middle half between $56,260 and $100,370
- **Total US employment:** 283,380
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +1.8% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 23,000 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 37/100 — 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 283,380 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $44,110 |
| 25th | $56,260 |
| 50th (median) | $74,750 |
| 75th | $100,370 |
| 90th | $135,150 |
| Mean (average) | $84,120 |

### 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 | $102,740 | $93,484 | 16,720 |
| WA | $87,470 | $81,738 | 6,430 |
| CA | $85,030 | $76,797 | 32,710 |
| CT | $84,990 | $82,029 | 1,910 |
| NY | $81,250 | $75,287 | 28,250 |
| CO | $80,680 | $78,291 | 7,410 |
| VA | $80,380 | $79,502 | 9,990 |
| NJ | $80,130 | $73,646 | 4,980 |
| MA | $79,660 | $75,324 | 6,760 |
| MD | $79,560 | $75,801 | 4,190 |
| RI | $77,540 | $75,811 | 1,140 |
| IL | $76,380 | $76,412 | 6,200 |
| DE | $76,120 | $76,266 | 930 |
| OR | $74,900 | $72,464 | 4,510 |
| NV | $73,840 | $73,856 | 1,600 |

39 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 54 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/public-information-officer/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/public-information-officer.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 314,500 in the 2025–2035 base year to 320,200 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 5,700 jobs, or +1.8%. Slower than average: 1.8% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 23,000 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:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** None.

### 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 |
| --- | --- |
| Bachelor's Degree | 90.9% |
| Master's Degree | 9.1% |

## What the work involves

- Write news releases, statements and public alerts
- Respond to media questions and arrange interviews
- Prepare officials and spokespeople for press briefings
- Run agency social media and website updates
- Brief the public during emergencies and major incidents
- Work in joint information centers with partner agencies
- Correct misinformation and rumors
- Plan community outreach and public education campaigns

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 2.9 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 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Evaluation — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Communications and Media — importance 4.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Sales and Marketing — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Computers and Electronics — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — 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 Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Recognition — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Clarity — importance 4.0 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 Enterprising (E), Artistic (A), Social (S).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| E — Enterprising | 5.87 |
| A — Artistic | 4.72 |
| S — Social | 4.38 |
| C — Conventional | 3.45 |
| I — Investigative | 2.72 |
| R — Realistic | 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) |
| --- | --- |
| ENFJ | 83.4 |
| ENFP | 78.5 |
| ESFP | 68.7 |
| ESFJ | 65.2 |
| ENTJ | 62.8 |

Best-fitting types: ENFJ, ENFP.

## Related occupations

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

- [Public Relations Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/public-relations-specialist) — median $74,750
- [Public Relations Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/public-relations-manager) — median $146,910
- [Advertising and Promotions Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/advertising-and-promotions-manager) — median $133,660
- [Market Research Analyst and Marketing Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/market-research-analyst-and-marketing-specialist) — median $78,760
- [Writer and Author](https://nuecareer.com/careers/writer-and-author) — median $76,910
- [Marketing Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/marketing-manager) — median $166,790
- [Advertising Sales Agent](https://nuecareer.com/careers/advertising-sales-agent) — median $64,820
- [Media Programming Director](https://nuecareer.com/careers/media-programming-director) — median $90,360
- [Fundraiser](https://nuecareer.com/careers/fundraiser) — median $72,550
- [Fundraising Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/fundraising-manager) — median $125,470

## 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/public-information-officer