City of Memphis / Police Services / Police Lieutenant
Job-title file
Police Lieutenant
Enforce laws and maintain public safety — patrol, respond to incidents, investigate crimes, and make arrests.
157 employees hold this title in Police Services. Median total compensation for the role is $91,149, above the department median of $77,100.
- Employees
- 157
- Total payroll
- $14.3M
- Role median
- $91,149
- Agency median
- $77,100
- Comparison
- Above
What the records show
Role pay distribution
Pay distribution for this role
How total compensation varies among the 157 people in this role. Even for one job title, pay differs with seniority, step, overtime, and tenure. Each bar is a pay range; the far-right bar collects the highest earners.
Compared with the local labor market
Police Lieutenant pay vs. the Memphis, TN-MS-AR area
Across all employers in the Memphis, TN-MS-AR area, the median wage for First-Line Supervisors of Police and Detectives — about 940 people — is $79,050. Police Services pays a median base salary of $91,149 for this role, 15% above that figure — about the 79th percentile of local pay for the occupation.
Where Police Services sits in the local pay range
The bar is the range of annual wages for First-Line Supervisors of Police and Detectives across every employer in the Memphis, TN-MS-AR area, from the 10th to the 90th percentile, with the middle 50% highlighted. The marker shows Police Services’s median base salary for this role. Both figures are base pay only.
And across the country
Nationwide, the median wage for First-Line Supervisors of Police and Detectives — about 154,610 people — is $106,040. Police Services’s median base salary is 14% below that national figure, about the 35th percentile of pay for the occupation nationally.
Local and national wages differ for reasons beyond how well a job pays — cost of living, the mix of employers, and local demand for the occupation all move the Memphis, TN-MS-AR range relative to the national one.
Median total compensation for this role at Police Services is $91,149, which includes overtime and employer-paid benefits. The benchmark above excludes both, so total compensation is deliberately not compared against it.
Benchmark: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (May 2025). BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) covers all employers in the area — private, non-profit, and government alike — so this is a comparison against the whole local labor market for the occupation, not against private-sector pay. OEWS wages are straight-time pay and exclude overtime, shift differentials, and employer-paid benefits, so the government figure shown here is base pay on the same basis. Total compensation is not comparable to it. Job titles are matched to the closest standard occupation, so the comparison is between similar work rather than an identical job classification.
Compare jurisdictions
Police Lieutenant beyond City of Memphis
This role is reported in 22 jurisdictions. In City of Memphis, the median of $91,149 ranks #17 of 22. See Police Lieutenant across all of City of Memphis →
Highest-paying jurisdictions for this role
Median total compensation for comparable Police Lieutenantroles in other jurisdictions. Titles are matched by normalized name across sources, not identical job classification, and pay is not cost-of-living adjusted. Each bar links to that jurisdiction’s page for the role.
Record list
Employees with this title
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No employees match these filters.