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Jurisdiction file

City of Philadelphia employee salaries and total compensation

Source file: City of Philadelphia — Employee Earnings / ingested Jun 19, 2026

In 2026, City of Philadelphia reported 32,410 employees across 52 departments, with a total payroll of $698.5M. The highest-paid distinct record was Laurence Nodiff (Philadelphia Police Department) at $574,239.

Latest year
2026
Employees
32,410
Average pay
$21,553
Mean total compensation
Total payroll
$698.5M
Departments
52
Top record
$574,239

What the records show

Department analytics

Median pay and headcount show where payroll dollars concentrate and which agencies define the jurisdiction’s compensation profile.

Largest departments

The 12 departments employing the most people in 2026. Bar length is headcount. These departments drive most of the payroll and set the overall pay mix.

Highest-paying departments

Departments ranked by median total compensation — the typical employee's pay. High medians usually signal specialized or professional workforces (e.g. medical, legal, or public-safety agencies) rather than across-the-board higher pay.

Compared with the local labor market

City of Philadelphia pay vs. the surrounding job market

Across 27 roles that match a standard occupation, City of Philadelphia’s median base salary runs 76% below the median wage for the same work in Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD. 0 of those roles pay above the local median and 27 pay below it.

Roles compared
27
Above local median
0
Below local median
27
Typical gap
−76%

This covers the 941 employees (3% of the workforce) in roles whose job titles map to a standard occupation. Titles that are too generic to match one — broad classification series, and job families the survey reports by academic field — are left out rather than guessed at, so the figure describes the comparable subset, not the entire payroll.

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.

Trend

Year over year

How City of Philadelphia's total payroll, headcount, and average pay changed across the 8 published years. Average pay is total payroll divided by employees.

YearTotal payrollEmployeesAverage pay
2019
$1.7B
—
34,928
—
$48,657
—
2020
$2.4B
▲ 40.0%
33,553
▼ 3.9%
$70,893
▲ 45.7%
2021
$2.3B
▼ 5.4%
32,947
▼ 1.8%
$68,315
▼ 3.6%
2022
$2.4B
▲ 4.7%
33,085
▲ 0.4%
$71,241
▲ 4.3%
2023
$1.7B
▼ 26.2%
33,126
▲ 0.1%
$52,522
▼ 26.3%
2024
$2.7B
▲ 52.8%
34,945
▲ 5.5%
$76,091
▲ 44.9%
2025
$2.8B
▲ 6.9%
36,546
▲ 4.6%
$77,787
▲ 2.2%
2026
$698.5M
▼ 75.4%
32,410
▼ 11.3%
$21,553
▼ 72.3%

Department index

Open an agency file

Department pages break down pay distributions, common job titles, and the employees behind the latest published payroll.

52 departments

Philadelphia Police Department6,545$27,267
Philadelphia Fire Department2,980$33,557
First Judicial District of Pennsylvania2,324$15,011
Philadelphia Water Department2,308$20,746
Sanitation Division1,984$15,564
Philadelphia Department of Prisons1,840$19,950
Streets Department1,671$5,065
Department of Human Services1,416$19,332
Philadelphia Parks and Recreation1,250$13,086
Free Library of Philadelphia1,068$14,408
Managing Director's Office1,027$16,495
Department of Public Health950$17,444
Department of Aviation920$17,748
District Attorney's Office718$18,583
Office of Innovation and Technology602$20,690
Department of Revenue535$12,560
Law Department398$19,888
Sheriff's Office396$18,923
Department of Licenses and Inspections392$16,291
Department of Fleet Services370$22,182
City Council288$15,359
Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual Disability Services282$19,855
Office of the Director of Finance234$21,005
City Commissioners182$11,670
Office of Property Assessment171$18,923
Office of Human Resources159$11,032
Office of the City Controller142$17,812
Office of Homeless Services140$16,573
Department of Planning and Development133$19,513
Department of Public Property124$18,237
Office of the Chief Administrative Officer103$16,082
Mayor's Office102$22,058
Mayor's Office of Education85$17,047
Register of Wills84$14,151
Office of Community Empowerment and Opportunity72$15,918
Department of Records54$13,312
Office of Labor51$16,970
Board of Pensions and Retirement45$12,314
Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations44$14,289
Procurement Department39$18,862
Neighborhood Community Action Centers29$14,138
Office of Sustainability29$19,931
Office of the Inspector General22$19,228
Office of the City Treasurer20$19,023
Board of Revision of Taxes20$12,007
Department of Commerce14$19,647
Board of Ethics13$23,449
Licenses and Inspections Review Board10$2,125
Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy8$17,084
Mural Arts Program8$11,204
Civil Service Commission5$4,000
Board of Building Standards4$1,020