Contracting
37,520 federal civilian employees in May 2026, as the Office of Personnel Management published them. OPM publishes a salary for 11,641 of them, and the median of those is $129,728.
Contracting, May 2026
- 37,520
- Employees
- 11,641
- Salary published
- 31.0% of them. Every pay figure here divides by this.
- 25,822
- Salary withheld
- 68.8%, under OPM's own release policy.
- 57
- Neither withheld nor averaged
- Paid hourly, per diem or on another basis, or with no pay recorded. Not withheld, and not in the median.
- $129,728
- Median salary
- Annual rate, over those paid per annum. It excludes overtime, awards and bonuses.
A tenth of published salaries are under $88,412 and a tenth over $182,295.
Contracting, from September 2015 to July 2026
A point a year and the most recent months, which is what the file this page reads keeps. The share with a published salary is beside each, because a change in the median can be a change in whose pay is withheld. A month OPM flags as incomplete is marked provisional.
1 more column on a wider screen
| Month | Employees | Salary published |
|---|---|---|
| September 2015 | 37,071 | 34.6% |
| September 2016 | 37,839 | 34.4% |
| September 2017 | 37,957 | 34.1% |
| September 2018 | 38,226 | 32.9% |
| September 2019 | 39,388 | 32.3% |
| September 2020 | 39,904 | 32.5% |
| September 2021 | 40,619 | 32.9% |
| September 2022 | 41,374 | 34.2% |
| September 2023 | 42,976 | 35.0% |
| September 2024 | 44,510 | 35.3% |
| September 2025 | 40,784 | 34.6% |
| May 2026 | 37,520 | 31.0% |
| June 2026 (provisional) | 37,313 | 31.1% |
| July 2026 (provisional) | 37,316 | 31.1% |
How the federal salary figures are made
Sources
- OPM Federal Workforce Data — Federal Employment Raw Data (EHRI Status) — U.S. Office of Personnel Management · Public domain — U.S. Government work · retrieved September 26, 2026
Data retrieved