Agencies With the Most Federal Employee Salaries Above $100,000 and $200,000

Which agencies have the most federal employee salaries of $100,000+ and $200,000+ per year? Which are the highest-paid occupations?

Most readers would prefer to have a job in an agency that has a larger number of high federal employee salaries. Of course, how one defines a “high salary” depends on skills an individual brings into a federal agency.

Average Federal Employee Salaries

How much do federal employees make in a federal salary each year? According to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), at the end of June 2021, the average federal salary was $91,645. The average American salary in 2020 was $56,310. $129,250 is the average federal employee salary in the Washington, DC locality pay area as of June 2021.

While these averages are high compared to most Americans, most of us want to be above average. In particular, most of us want to have a higher than average salary.

Where does a person go to seek out the highest federal employee salaries?

One place to start is by looking at the list of agencies that hire the largest number of higher-paid employees. While your definition of a highly paid employee may be different, here is a list of the agencies with the most employees that receive a salary of at least $100,000 or more per year. The federal benefits package is above and beyond what an employee receives each year in salary.

For those seeking to find individual federal employee salaries, the data in this article is from FedsDataCenter.com. Individual federal employee salaries are also available on that website and this article explains how to more easily find an individual federal employee’s salary using the search engine on that website.

Readers wanting to see which agencies have the highest and lowest average for federal employee salaries can find this information at Where Federal Salary is $37,605 Higher —And Why This is Important.

Agencies With Most Federal Employee Salaries of $100,000+ Per Year

# of $100,000+ EmployeesAgency
109,214DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS
70,370DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
51,145DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
46,238DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
36,967DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 
32,843DEPARTMENT OF TREASURY
26,880DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
17,948DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
16,186DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR
15,679SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
14,571NATIONAL AERONAUTICS & SPACE ADMINISTRATION
11,637ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
9660DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
8191DEPARTMENT OF STATE
7750GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION
7659DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
6008DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING & URBAN DEVELOPMENT
4366SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
4335FEDERAL DEPOSIT INSURANCE CORPORATION
3398AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
501,145Total Number

Agencies With Most Federal Employee Salaries of $200,000+ Per Year

For those employees who are seeking a higher salary, there are a number of agencies employing people and paying a salary of $200,000 per year or more. Here is a listing sorted with the largest number of employees making over $200,000 listed first.

# of $200,000+ EmployeesAgency
28,186DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS
2806DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
2701SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
1392FEDERAL DEPOSIT INSURANCE CORPORATION
786DEPARTMENT OF TREASURY
382DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
332COMMODITY FUTURES TRADING COMMISSION
251FEDERAL HOUSING FINANCE AGENCY
243FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM
41DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
25FARM CREDIT ADMINISTRATION
19DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
12DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
12ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
8NATIONAL AERONAUTICS & SPACE ADMINISTRATION
8PRESIDIO TRUST
6ARMED FORCES RETIREMENT HOME
5FARM CREDIT SYSTEM INSURANCE CORPORATION
2DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
1OFFICE OF U.S. TRADE REPRESENTATIVE
36,836TOTAL NUMBER

Occupations With Highest Average Federal Employee Salaries

Agencies that have the highest average for federal employee salaries often have the highest number of employees in occupations that support higher salaries. With this in mind, here is a list of federal occupations with the highest average salaries.

OccupationAverage Salary
Medical Officer$250,978
Securities Compliance Examining$199,911
Dental Officer$192,476
Administrative Law Judge$178,224
Patent Attorney$172,408
Patent Administration$170,328
Technical Systems Program Manager$162,582
Chief Engineer$161,062
Podiatrist$152,591

It is not surprising that occupations in the medical field are prominent in this list.

About the Author

Ralph Smith has several decades of experience working with federal human resources issues. He has written extensively on a full range of human resources topics in books and newsletters and is a co-founder of two companies and several newsletters on federal human resources. Follow Ralph on Twitter: @RalphSmith47