NJ Civil Service Navigator

Chief Family

Career series with 232 positions

Chief is a generic classification: 172 specialization areas share the title across 232 codes.

Specializations include Accountant, Administrative Support Services, and Appeals Examiner, among others. Pay across the family spans $56,315 to $241,677, around the 99th percentile of all civil service job families by top pay. State payroll records show 160 people across the family's titles, most concentrated at Labor.

232
Positions
172
Specializations
Salary Range: $56,315 - $241,677/year

Specializations

Accountant Administrative Support Services Appeals Examiner Architect Assistant Assessor Audit Activity Treasury Auditor Auditor Of Labor +164 more

Positions in This Family

... and 217 more positions

What the Chief family covers

Chief is a rank rather than a single job. New Jersey applies it across 172 specializations, which together account for 232 title codes. The family straddles jurisdictions: 142 state, 69 local, and 8 both state and local, so parts of it are hired by state departments and parts by local civil service employers.

Chief, director, manager and supervisor are not single jobs in New Jersey civil service. They are ranks applied across the whole of government, so a single family can hold hundreds of codes covering entirely unrelated bureaus. That structure matters for anyone reading the pay figures: two titles in the same family may share nothing except a level of responsibility. Most of these positions are managerial or unclassified, which means salaries are set individually rather than by stepping through a published ladder, and the managerial schedule itself has been frozen since 2007.

The ladder, ordered by pay

The Chief rungs, listed from the best paid down.

Showing the 12 best paid of 137 titles with published salary data.

The distance from the bottom of Chief Bureau of Inspection and Aircraft Operations to the top of Chief Public Utility Economist is $185,362, an increase of about 329% over the entry minimum. 72 of the 232 titles in the family sit on a schedule whose rates are frozen, so the published figure there is the schedule of record rather than a guide to actual pay.

What each title does

Reading the definitions side by side is the quickest way to see what changes as you move through the family.

  • Chief State Medical Examiner: The Chief State Medical Examiner shall report to the Commissioner of Health; however, the Office of the Chief State Medical…
  • Chief Certificate of Need Program: Under the direction of the Director, Health Systems Services, in the Department of Health, is responsible for the development, implementation and…
  • Chief Nursing Officer, Psychiatric: CHIEF NURSING OFFICER, PSYCHIATRIC JOB CATEGORY SUMMARY Takes responsibility for oversight of nursing services within assigned nursing services of a hospital; clinically and administratively ensures…
  • Chief Bureau of Client Services: Under the direction of the Director, Office of Quality Assurance, in the Department of Human Services, is responsible for receiving, overseeing…
  • Chief Juvenile Detention Officer: Under direction of a supervisory official in a County Juvenile Detention Facility, has charge of the custodial work program, shift personnel, and custody…
  • Chief Accountant: Under direction, plans, organizes, directs, coordinates, and supervises accounting work involved in the maintenance of an accounting system; prepares financial…
  • Chief Assistant Assessor: Under direction of the Tax Assessor, supervises and directs the unit activities and staff responsible for the appraisal and assessment of real property…
  • Chief Auditor: Under direction, plans, organizes, directs, coordinates, supervises and has charge of the auditing work involved in the systematic examination and appraisal of financial…

Showing 8 of 185 published definitions in this family. The full list of titles is below.

Requirements across the family

Across the 232 titles we have parsed, the education requirements read as a master's degree on 72 of them, a bachelor's degree on 70 of them, a doctoral degree on 14 of them, a high school diploma on 4 of them, and an associate's degree on 4 of them. Stated experience runs from 1 year at the lowest rung to 10 at the highest, which is the main thing separating one level from the next.

27 of the 232 titles carry a license or certification requirement. On how the jobs are filled: 162 are competitive, filled from an eligible list after an open competitive or promotional examination, 15 are non-competitive, appointed on proof of the stated qualifications rather than by examination, and 39 are unclassified, which means appointment at the employer's discretion and salary set individually. 4 titles in this family are covered by the compendium's special incentive program, which lets an appointing authority hire a qualified candidate above the bottom step instead of starting them at step one. See the full list of incentive titles.

Who actually employs these titles

State payroll records show 160 people working under 39 of this family's titles, spread across 24 agencies. Labor alone accounts for about 21% of them.

  • Labor — 33 employees
  • Treasury — 19 employees
  • Law and Public Safety — 14 employees
  • Health and Senior Services — 13 employees
  • Human Services — 13 employees
  • Transportation — 11 employees

Those are the 6 largest of 24 agencies employing this family.

Median actual pay varies across the family, from $76,768 for Chief Bridge Operator up to $198,958 for Chief of Dental Services. Those are medians of what people are really paid, not schedule minimums and maximums.

State payroll only, deduplicated by payroll title; local employers file separately, so a family with local codes looks smaller here than it is. How this is counted.

How the pay is set

The family is split across 9 salary schedules (4A, 4B, A-P-R-S, M, M-Represented, M3, MB, V-W-Y, and X), so two titles that look adjacent can be paid from different tables with different step structures. More than one union has members in this family: CWA, IBEW, and NJLECOA.

Where these jobs exist

Because the family mixes jurisdictions, the answer to "who hires this" depends on the specific code. State codes run through the Civil Service Commission's announcement and eligible list process; local codes are hired by the counties, municipalities and authorities that adopted civil service under Title 11A. Check an employer's status before assuming a title is available where you live.

Common questions about Chief jobs

How many Chief titles are there in New Jersey civil service?

The Chief family holds 232 title codes. Each code is a separate classification with its own published specification, requirements and salary treatment.

What does a Chief earn in New Jersey?

Published salary data for this family runs from $56,315 at the bottom of Chief Bureau of Inspection and Aircraft Operations to $241,677 at the top of Chief Public Utility Economist. Those are schedule figures. Where the title appears on the state payroll, actual median pay is listed on the page above.

Do you need to take an exam to become a Chief?

Yes for most of the family. 162 of the 232 titles are in the competitive division, which means appointment comes from an eligible list built by an open competitive or promotional examination.

What qualifications does a Chief need?

The most common education requirement in this family is a master's degree, named on 72 of the 232 titles. Stated experience ranges from 1 to 10 years depending on the rung. 27 of the titles also require a license or certification. Read the individual specification for the exact wording, including any experience substitution.

Which agencies employ Chief staff?

State payroll records show 160 people in this family across 24 agencies, with Labor the largest at 33. Local government employers are not covered by that extract.