Police and Sheriff's Patrol Officers Average Salary in Texas
$76,160 average · $76,160 median · BLS OEWS 2025
SOC Code: 33-3051What is this?
This page shows employer-reported wages for Police and Sheriff's Patrol Officers in Texas, drawn from the Bureau of Labor Statistics OEWS survey — median and mean pay, the full percentile distribution, and the industries that employ this occupation locally. For public-safety roles, jurisdiction is nearly everything: the same job pays dramatically differently across cities and states, and overtime commonly adds 20-40% to the base wages shown here. Rank progression is the internal ladder. For private security, armed/specialized credentials and site type create the more modest variation visible at the lower end of the distribution.
How much do Police and Sheriff's Patrol Officers make in Texas?
The average police and sheriff's patrol officers salary in Texas is $76,160 per year. That works out to about $36.62 per hour on average. BLS counts roughly 63,100 police and sheriff's patrol officers jobs in Texas.
Mean and median are close, so pay is relatively concentrated around $76,160. Entry-level roles (10th percentile) report about $76,160; experienced workers at the 90th percentile report about $76,160 — a 0% spread from bottom to top. Figures are employer-reported wages from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program — not self-reported survey averages — so they are the right baseline for offers, raises, and relocation decisions in this market.
How Protective Service Careers Are Structured
Protective service wages — police, fire, corrections, security — split sharply between the public-safety core, with civil-service pay scales, strong benefits, and pensions, and private security, with little of any of those. The two halves share a group code but not an economic reality, and the spread in this data reflects that split.
The wage tables and percentile chart on this page show how police and sheriff's patrol officers pay is distributed in Texas specifically — and because state-level wages for the same occupation routinely differ by 30% or more, the local figures here are the ones that matter for offers, raises, and relocation decisions in this market.
What Moves Pay in This Field
For public-safety roles, jurisdiction is nearly everything: the same job pays dramatically differently across cities and states, and overtime commonly adds 20-40% to the base wages shown here. Rank progression is the internal ladder. For private security, armed/specialized credentials and site type create the more modest variation visible at the lower end of the distribution.
Public-safety entry runs through civil-service testing and academies, with hiring tied to municipal budget cycles — timing applications across multiple jurisdictions matters. The headline wage understates these careers: defined-benefit pensions and retirement eligibility at 50-55 are worth a substantial wage premium that no salary table captures.
New to reading wage distributions? Our guide to salary percentiles explains how to place yourself on the chart above, and the negotiation playbook shows how to use these numbers in an actual conversation.
What Do Police and Sheriff's Patrol Officers Do?
Police and Sheriff's Patrol Officers positions belong to the protective service field. Protective service wages — police, fire, corrections, security — split sharply between the public-safety core, with civil-service pay scales, strong benefits, and pensions, and private security, with little of any of those. The two halves share a group code but not an economic reality, and the spread in this data reflects that split.
Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) Code: 33-3051
Police and Sheriff's Patrol Officers pay in Texas
In Texas, police and sheriff's patrol officers report a median of $76,160 (about $36.62/hour) across roughly 63,100 jobs. The local pay band runs from about $76,160 at the 10th percentile to $76,160 at the 90th.
Compared with the national distribution, local industry mix and cost of living are the main reasons Texas wages for this occupation sit where they do — toggle Regional Price Parity on this page to see purchasing-power-adjusted pay.
What your paycheck is really worth in Texas
Prices in Texas run 3% below the national average (RPP 97.1). So a nominal salary of $76,160 has the buying power of about $78,469 in national terms.
Texas vs. United States for Police and Sheriff's Patrol Officers
The median police and sheriff's patrol officers salary in Texas is $76,160, which is -4.0% below the national median of $79,340 (mean pay is -3.7% below the U.S. mean of $79,063). Among 51 states and D.C. with OEWS data, Texas ranks #24 by median wage for this occupation. Texas accounts for about 1.6% of U.S. police and sheriff's patrol officers employment in the latest OEWS release.
See every state ranked for this occupation on the best-paying states page, or compare purchasing power on real wages.
Income reality check
The median salary for Police and Sheriff's Patrol Officers in Texas of $76,160 falls in the Comfortable band of this framework - roughly ~12% of the U.S. population and ~7% of the global population sit in this band.
Illustrative relative standing for education only - this ladder is a simplified framework, not an official Census, BLS, or World Bank statistical series. Salary figures on Wage Atlas come from official BLS OEWS data.
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Occupation Report Card
Top Industries for Police and Sheriff's Patrol Officers
| $79,546 | $76,614 | $38 | 3,231,590 | |
| $66,465 | $61,426 | $32 | 99,750 |
Related Occupations
| $86,440 | $86,580 | $42 | 4,391,320 | |
| $85,267 | $85,220 | $41 | 3,320,570 | |
SOC: 11-9141 • 89% match | $83,683 | $78,350 | $40 | 1,559,810 |
SOC: 51-1011 • 94% match | $76,771 | $76,600 | $37 | 3,432,060 |
| Find Occupation 51 1011 Jobs | ||||
SOC: 49-9041 • 89% match | $68,538 | $68,260 | $33 | 2,222,600 |
SOC: 53-1047 • 90% match | $66,912 | $66,860 | $32 | 3,200,690 |
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Police And Sheriffs Patrol Officers in Other States
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