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Wake 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.
Wake County Sheriff's Office starts at $56,697 a year — about $27.26 an hour on a 2,080-hour year, before overtime. That is $11,693 below the median of the 1,681 agencies on this list, and $8,678 below the median for county agencies.
Cost of livingPrices in Raleigh-Cary, NC run about 2% below the national average, so this goes about as far as $57,761 would somewhere at average prices — $1,065 more than the headline figure. That average hides a wide spread: utilities at 89, where goods are 97. 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 isWake County Sheriff's Office reported 354 sworn officers and 465 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 Wake County says about itself
It is our mission that the Wake County Sheriff's Office serve the citizens, residents, and visitors of Wake County by providing professional law enforcement, judicial, and detention services that protect and preserve the Constitutional Rights of the people and mandates the fair and impartial enforcement of the law.
What Wake County does
Wake County Sheriff's Office is the primary law enforcement agency for the unincorporated areas of North Carolina's largest county, which contains the state capital, and employs approximately 1,000 sworn and civilian staff working around the clock from the John H. Baker Jr. Public Safety Center in Raleigh. It operates alongside twelve local law enforcement agencies as well as state and federal partners, particularly in serving and processing arrest warrants. Its Judicial Services Division provides school resource officers to the state's largest school system, serves civil process as North Carolina statute requires of every county sheriff, and houses a Victim Services Unit handling domestic restraining orders and a Judicial Transport Unit that moves people under involuntary commitment to treatment facilities across the state. A Courthouse Operations Division keeps the courts and county government buildings secure, and the Administrative Division covers concealed carry permits, recruiting, the sex offender registry and custody of evidence. The Sheriff is elected to four-year terms.
Shifts at Wake County
Applicants must be willing to work 12-hour rotating shifts, including holidays and weekends.
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.
Rotating 12s put your days off on a cycle that ignores the week, so holidays land on a working day as often as not. BlueShifts builds the rotation once and marks the federal holidays on it, so you can see which ones you are actually rostered for before anyone asks you about Christmas.
Where the figure comes from
Checked 15 August 2026. Wake County Sheriff's Office official recruiting page — Deputy Sheriff — open the source document
The Sheriff's Office starts a deputy on $25.96 an hour while they complete the Basic Law Enforcement Training academy, then applies a 5 per cent increase on graduation, which brings a newly sworn NC BLET certified deputy to $27.26 an hour, about $56,696 a year. Incentives for education, military service, prior experience and foreign language fluency are calculated after BLET. An experienced deputy moving laterally can reach $34.19 an hour, $71,115. Deputies must be willing to work 12-hour rotating shifts including holidays and weekends.
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.
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 this level compares
Where Wake 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 | $35,006 | $71,287 | $163,619 | 1046 |
| County | $36,492 | $65,374 | $132,263 | 416 |
| Special jurisdiction | $31,200 | $60,195 | $107,954 | 69 |
| State | $33,994 | $64,998 | $102,692 | 143 |
| 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 $2,200 more than the middle municipal agency and about $8,100 more than the middle county agency and about $13,300 more than the middle special jurisdiction agency and about $8,500 more than the middle state agency and about $45,300 more than the middle territory agency. Wake County starts at $56,697, so $8,677 below the county middle.
How it ranks
Common questions
How much does a Wake County Sheriff's Office officer make?
Wake County Sheriff's Office starts a new officer on $56,697 a year, about $27.26 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 Wake County Sheriff's Office official recruiting page — Deputy Sheriff.
Is that good pay for a police officer in North Carolina?
It ranks #14 of 40 agencies we have verified in North Carolina — 26 pay less, 13 pay more in the state — and #1,378 of 1,681 nationally. Against the national median it is $11,693 below, and against other county agencies $8,678 below.
What shifts do Wake County Sheriff's Office officers work?
Applicants must be willing to work 12-hour rotating shifts, including holidays and weekends. That is the agency's own published wording; the pattern is drawn on this page.
Compare with another department
Put Wake 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 NC
| # | Agency | Level | Sworn # | Entry pay | Vs Wake | National |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Knightdale Police Department | Municipal | 45 | $67,363 | +$10,666 | #902 |
| 2 | Cary Police Department | Municipal | 194 | $65,104 | +$8,407 | #1,012 |
| 3 | Wake Forest Police Department | Municipal | 96 | $65,093 | +$8,396 | #1,013 |
| 4 | Appalachian State University Police Department | Special jurisdiction | 36 | $64,084 | +$7,387 | #1,057 |
| 5 | North Carolina State Highway Patrol | State | — | $63,250 | +$6,553 | #1,100 |
| 6 | Johnston County Sheriff's Office | County | 124 | $62,213 | +$5,516 | #1,147 |
| 7 | Chapel Hill Police Department | Municipal | 82 | $61,451 | +$4,754 | #1,176 |
| 8 | Raleigh Police Department | Municipal | 713 | $61,417 | +$4,720 | #1,177 |
| 9 | Duke University Police Department | Special jurisdiction | 57 | $60,195 | +$3,499 | #1,227 |
| 10 | Greensboro Police Department | Municipal | 582 | $59,509 | +$2,812 | #1,268 |
| 11 | Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department | Municipal | 1,702 | $59,502 | +$2,805 | #1,269 |
| 12 | Rolesville Police Department | Municipal | 25 | $59,304 | +$2,607 | #1,274 |
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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