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Shelby County Sheriff's Office entry pay
What this agency pays a new officer to start, and how that compares with the rest of the country.
Entry pay onlyEvery salary here is what an officer is paid on day one, out of the academy — base pay on a 40-hour week, with no overtime, shift differential, specialty or education pay counted. Nobody stays on it.
Shelby County Sheriff's Office starts at $57,408 a year — about $27.60 an hour on a 2,080-hour year, before overtime. That is $9,277 below the median of the 2,288 agencies on this list, and $6,152 below the median for county agencies.
Cost of livingPrices in Birmingham, AL run about 8% below the national average, so this goes about as far as $62,642 would somewhere at average prices — $5,234 more than the headline figure. Most of that is rent, at 72 against a national average of 100, where goods are 96. Based on price levels for this metropolitan area, from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, 2024. The salary above is what the employer publishes; this line is our arithmetic on it, and nothing on this site is ranked on it.
How big the department isShelby County Sheriff's Office reported 147 sworn officers and 83 civilian staff to the FBI for 2025.No rate is shown: this agency does not police a single population the FBI publishes a figure for. Reporting to the FBI is voluntary, so a count can reflect a partial return as easily as a small agency, and the FBI asks that agencies not be compared on staffing. Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, Full-time Law Enforcement Employees, 2025.
What Shelby County says about itself
The Shelby County Sheriff's Office is committed to upholding the Constitution and protecting the lives, rights, and property of everyone through excellence in law enforcement, jail operations, and service to the public.
What Shelby County does
The Patrol Division represents the front line of the Sheriff's Office. The Patrol Section conducts highly visible patrols of all Shelby County.
Shifts at Shelby County
The Sheriff's Office states on its own careers page that deputies work 12-hour shifts with SET OFF DAYS - scheduled to work half the week and be off the other half, giving as many scheduled off days as work days in a year - and that pay runs on 84-hour bi-weekly paychecks. Off-duty jobs and secondary employment are available but not required.
The agency publishes the shift length but not a named cycle. These are the 12-hour rotations departments most often build on it: Pitman, 4 on, 4 off, DuPont, Panama, 3-4-4-3.
Half the year off duty sounds simple until you try to plan a month around it, because an 84-hour fortnight does not sit on a seven-day week. BlueShifts draws the worked and off days onto the real month, and the off-duty work that fills the gaps is exactly what the statistics side of the app is for.
Where the figure comes from
Checked 9 August 2026. Shelby County Law Enforcement Personnel Board 2026 pay scale — open the source document
Their source is effective 1 July 2026.
Entry-level base salary only. Overtime, bonuses, education incentives, shift
differentials, locality pay and lateral rates are excluded, so most officers earn more
than this.
How this level compares
Where Shelby County sits is partly about the agency and partly about which level of policing it belongs to. The three levels do not pay the same.
| Level | Lowest | Median | Highest | Agencies |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Municipal | $33,280 | $68,140 | $163,619 | 1549 |
| County | $35,000 | $63,565 | $132,263 | 516 |
| Special jurisdiction | $31,200 | $60,204 | $107,954 | 71 |
| State | $33,994 | $65,166 | $110,916 | 145 |
| Federal | $70,477 | $73,502 | $86,530 | 5 |
| Territory | $16,640 | $28,236 | $43,354 | 9 |
Federal agencies pay the most to start
The middle federal agency starts at $73,502 — about $5,400 more than the middle municipal agency and about $9,900 more than the middle county agency and about $13,300 more than the middle special jurisdiction agency and about $8,300 more than the middle state agency and about $45,300 more than the middle territory agency. Shelby County starts at $57,408, so $6,157 below the county middle.
BlueShifts. Plan Your Year. Own Your Time.
The shift calendar built for your rotation, off-duty work, and life on and off the clock.
Save your shift schedule once and BlueShifts fills the rest of the year in.
How it ranks
Common questions
How much does a Shelby County Sheriff's Office officer make?
Shelby County Sheriff's Office starts a new officer on $57,408 a year, about $27.60 an hour on a 2,080-hour year. That is base salary before overtime, bonuses, education incentives, shift differentials and locality pay, so most serving officers earn more. The figure comes from Shelby County Law Enforcement Personnel Board 2026 pay scale.
Is that good pay for a police officer in Alabama?
It ranks #7 of 35 agencies we have verified in Alabama — 28 pay less, 6 pay more in the state — and #1,735 of 2,288 nationally. Against the national median it is $9,277 below, and against other county agencies $6,152 below.
What shifts do Shelby County Sheriff's Office officers work?
The Sheriff's Office states on its own careers page that deputies work 12-hour shifts with SET OFF DAYS - scheduled to work half the week and be off the other half, giving as many scheduled off days as work days in a year - and that pay runs on 84-hour bi-weekly paychecks. Off-duty jobs and secondary employment are available but not required. That is the agency's own published wording; the pattern is drawn on this page.
Compare with another department
Put Shelby County Sheriff's Office side by side with any other agency on the site — the two salaries, what each is worth once local prices are counted, and which comes out ahead.
The agencies either side of it
Other agencies in AL
| # | Agency | Level | Sworn # | Entry pay | Vs Shelby | National |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hoover Police Department | Municipal | 178 | $62,920 | +$5,512 | #1,390 |
| 2 | Madison Police Department | Municipal | 88 | $60,195 | +$2,787 | #1,550 |
| 3 | Birmingham Police Department | Municipal | 755 | $59,862 | +$2,454 | #1,588 |
| 4 | Auburn Police Department | Municipal | 131 | $58,798 | +$1,390 | #1,642 |
| 5 | Huntsville Police Department | Municipal | 432 | $58,614 | +$1,206 | #1,649 |
| 6 | Opelika Police Department | Municipal | 103 | $58,217 | +$809 | #1,663 |
| 8 | Tuscaloosa Police Department | Municipal | 241 | $57,325 | −$83 | #1,740 |
| 9 | Alabama Highway Patrol | State | — | $56,726 | −$682 | #1,763 |
| 10 | Madison County Sheriff's Office | County | 184 | $55,390 | −$2,018 | #1,828 |
| 11 | Montgomery Police Department | Municipal | 259 | $55,168 | −$2,240 | #1,839 |
| 12 | Baldwin County Sheriff's Office | County | 174 | $53,768 | −$3,640 | #1,921 |
| 13 | Tuscaloosa County Sheriff's Office | County | 112 | $51,888 | −$5,520 | #1,997 |
Base pay is only part of the year
Whatever the figure above, the rotation is what decides your year — which weekends you lose, when the changeovers land, what you can plan around. Save yours once and BlueShifts shows it a year ahead, with the off-duty jobs you take and what each one paid.
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