NJ Civil Service Navigator

Investigator Family

Career series with 52 positions across 4 levels

Investigator is a career-ladder family in New Jersey civil service, with 52 titles spanning 4 levels.

Entry is typically through Investigator 3, advancing through the ladder toward Investigator 4 Law and Publc Safety and, from there, into supervisory roles. Pay across the family spans $53,282 to $134,900, around the 64th percentile of all civil service job families by top pay. State payroll records show 2,850 people across the family's titles, most concentrated at Law and Public Safety.

Investigator reports to supervising titles such as Deputy Chief Investigator and Assistant Chief State Investigator.

52
Positions
4
Career Levels
17
Specializations
Salary Range: $53,282 - $134,900/year

Specializations

Child Protection Citizen Information And Complaints County Adjuster's Office County Medical Examiner's Office Law And Publc Safety Law And Public Safety Law And Public Safety Specialized Credentials Law Department +9 more

Positions in This Family

... and 37 more positions

What the Investigator family covers

Investigator is a graded series in the New Jersey civil service classification plan, running 52 title codes across 4 levels. The family straddles jurisdictions: 29 state, 11 both state and local, and 3 local, so parts of it are hired by state departments and parts by local civil service employers.

Sworn and investigative titles sit apart from the rest of civil service. They carry their own salary schedules, their own unions and, in most cases, an academy requirement and a medical and psychological screen on top of the exam. Rank is handled by moving between titles rather than by moving up a range, so the ladder here is a sequence of separate classifications. New Jersey also runs a large civilian investigative service alongside the sworn forces, and those titles follow ordinary competitive rules even though the work overlaps.

The ladder, ordered by pay

Ordered by what they actually pay rather than by the number in the title, the Investigator rungs look like this. Note that the numbers in these titles do not run in pay order. In this family a lower number sits higher on the ladder, which is a New Jersey convention that catches people out when they read a title list top to bottom.

Showing the 12 best paid of 36 titles with published salary data.

The distance from the bottom of Investigator 3 Citizen Information and Complaints to the top of Investigator 3 Public Defender is $81,619, an increase of about 153% over the entry minimum.

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.

Showing 8 of 45 published definitions in this family. The full list of titles is below.

What it takes to qualify

Across the 52 titles we have parsed, the education requirements read as a bachelor's degree on 25 of them, a master's degree on 14 of them, a doctoral degree on 8 of them, and a high school diploma on 2 of them. Stated experience runs from 1 year at the lowest rung to 7 at the highest, which is the main thing separating one level from the next.

8 of the 52 titles carry a license or certification requirement. On how the jobs are filled: 36 are competitive, filled from an eligible list after an open competitive or promotional examination and 7 are non-competitive, appointed on proof of the stated qualifications rather than by examination.

Who actually employs these titles

State payroll records show 2,850 people working under 36 of this family's titles, spread across 20 agencies. Law and Public Safety alone accounts for about 27% of them.

  • Law and Public Safety — 772 employees
  • Treasury — 567 employees
  • Office of the Public Defender — 400 employees
  • Judiciary — 384 employees
  • Banking and Insurance — 280 employees
  • Children and Families — 123 employees

Those are the 6 largest of 20 agencies employing this family.

Median actual pay varies across the family, from $60,385 for Investigator 1 up to $130,339 for Supervising Investigator, Taxation. 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 2 salary schedules (A-P-R-S and C-I-O), 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 and IFPTE.

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.

Related titles elsewhere in the plan

These titles sit elsewhere in the classification plan but share vocabulary with Investigator, which usually means overlapping duties or a related eligible list.

Families next to this one

New Jersey's classification plan links families by shared terminology and by the routes people actually take between them. These sit closest to Investigator.

Common questions about Investigator jobs

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

The Investigator family holds 52 title codes arranged across 4 levels. Each code is a separate classification with its own published specification, requirements and salary treatment.

What does an Investigator earn in New Jersey?

Published salary data for this family runs from $53,282 at the bottom of Investigator 3 Citizen Information and Complaints to $134,900 at the top of Investigator 3 Public Defender. 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 an Investigator?

Yes for most of the family. 36 of the 52 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 an Investigator need?

The most common education requirement in this family is a bachelor's degree, named on 25 of the 52 titles. Stated experience ranges from 1 to 7 years depending on the rung. 8 of the titles also require a license or certification. Read the individual specification for the exact wording, including any experience substitution.

Which agencies employ Investigator staff?

State payroll records show 2,850 people in this family across 20 agencies, with Law and Public Safety the largest at 772. Local government employers are not covered by that extract.

Is Investigator 1 higher or lower than Investigator 3?

In this family the lower number is the more senior title. New Jersey's level numbering does not run in pay order, and reading the titles by number alone will give you the ladder upside down. The list above is sorted by what each title actually pays.