Clinical Director Family
Career series with 2 positions across 1 levels
New Jersey classifies Clinical Director as a 1-level family, 2 titles in all, built for step-by-step advancement.
The family is anchored by Clinical Director 1. Pay across the family spans $83,210 to $187,691, around the 96th percentile of all civil service job families by top pay.
Clinical Director supervises titles such as Clinical Laboratory Evaluator and Clinical Psychologist.
Positions in This Family
- CLINICAL DIRECTOR 1 (00561) $83,210 - $116,477/year
- CLINICAL DIRECTOR 1 (61680) $126,854 - $187,691/year
What the Clinical Director family covers
The Clinical Director family holds 2 related New Jersey civil service title codes. Every title in it is a state title, so the employer is a state department, commission or authority rather than a county or municipality.
The state is a direct care employer at scale, running psychiatric hospitals, developmental centers and veterans homes around the clock. That shapes the classifications: shift work, unusual work weeks and institution-specific variants are normal here rather than exceptional, and the same clinical title can exist several times over for different facilities. Professional licensure carries the qualification weight, so movement between the public and private sector is easier in this group than almost anywhere else in civil service. Counties run their own health departments and hire parallel titles under local jurisdiction.
The ladder, ordered by pay
Ordered by what they actually pay rather than by the number in the title, the Clinical Director rungs look like this. Here the numbering happens to agree with the pay order, which is not guaranteed elsewhere in New Jersey's plan.
- Clinical Director 1 — $126,854 to $187,691 (a doctoral degree and 6 years of experience)
- Clinical Director 1 — $83,210 to $116,477 (frozen schedule) (a doctoral degree and 6 years of experience)
The distance from the bottom of Clinical Director 1 to the top of Clinical Director 1 is $104,481, an increase of about 126% over the entry minimum. 1 of the 2 titles in the family sits 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
Each title in the family carries its own published definition. These are the opening lines of each one, which is usually where the difference between two neighboring rungs is actually stated.
- Clinical Director 1: Under the administrative direction of the Chief Executive Officer in a grade 1 level state hospital within the Department of Health…
What it takes to qualify
Across the 2 titles we have parsed, the education requirements read as a doctoral degree on 2 of them. Experience requirements sit at 6 years wherever they are stated.
On how the jobs are filled: 2 are unclassified, which means appointment at the employer's discretion and salary set individually.
How the pay is set
The family is split across 2 salary schedules (M and M-Represented), so two titles that look adjacent can be paid from different tables with different step structures. Bargaining is handled by IBEW. Union contracts and rights are collected here.
Where these jobs exist
Hiring for this family runs through state service. Departments, commissions and boards fill these titles from eligible lists built by the Civil Service Commission, so the route in is an announcement and a filing deadline rather than a posting you apply to directly. What state jurisdiction means, and a breakdown of who employs what.
Related titles elsewhere in the plan
These titles sit elsewhere in the classification plan but share vocabulary with Clinical Director, which usually means overlapping duties or a related eligible list.
- Clinical Director Medical (state jurisdiction)
- Director of Clinical Nutrition ($71,879 to $100,638, state jurisdiction) — in the Director family
- Clinical Pharmacist ($76,287 to $111,856, state jurisdiction)
- Clinical Psychologist (local jurisdiction)
- Clinical Psychologist (local jurisdiction)
- Clinical Nutritionist ($66,592 to $97,354, both state and local jurisdiction)
Common questions about Clinical Director jobs
How many separate Clinical Director classifications does New Jersey have?
The Clinical Director family holds 2 title codes. Each code is a separate classification with its own published specification, requirements and salary treatment.
How much is a Clinical Director paid?
Published salary data for this family runs from $83,210 at the bottom of Clinical Director 1 to $187,691 at the top of Clinical Director 1. Those are schedule figures. Where the title appears on the state payroll, actual median pay is listed on the page above.
Is there a civil service test for Clinical Director?
Mostly no. 2 of the 2 titles here are unclassified, so appointment is at the employer's discretion rather than from an eligible list, and salary is set individually rather than by a published step. That also makes cross-agency salary comparison less reliable for these titles.
What are the requirements to become a Clinical Director?
The most common education requirement in this family is a doctoral degree, named on 2 of the 2 titles. Stated experience ranges from 6 years depending on the rung. Read the individual specification for the exact wording, including any experience substitution.