Special Agent Family
Career series with 4 positions across 3 levels
Special Agent is a career-ladder family in New Jersey civil service, with 4 titles spanning 3 levels.
Entry is typically through Special Agent 3, advancing through the ladder toward Special Agent 1 and, from there, into supervisory roles. Pay across the family spans $75,122 to $172,593, around the 94th percentile of all civil service job families by top pay. State payroll records show 29 people across the family's titles, most concentrated at Treasury.
Special Agent is a common next step after Agricultural Products Agent.
Positions in This Family
- SPECIAL AGENT 3 (51343) $75,122 - $121,080/year
- SPECIAL AGENT 2 (51344) $86,543 - $139,798/year
- SPECIAL AGENT 1 (51345) $94,713 - $151,323/year
- SUPERVISING SPECIAL AGENT (51346) $116,710 - $172,593/year
What the Special Agent family covers
New Jersey classifies Special Agent as a 3-level series holding 4 separate 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.
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
Sorted by pay instead of by title number, the Special Agent family stacks up as follows. 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.
- Supervising Special Agent — $116,710 to $172,593 (a master's degree and 3 years of experience)
- Special Agent 1 — $94,713 to $151,323 (a master's degree and 2 years of experience)
- Special Agent 2 — $86,543 to $139,798 (a master's degree and 1 year of experience)
- Special Agent 3 — $75,122 to $121,080 (a bachelor's degree and 1 year of experience)
The distance from the bottom of Special Agent 3 to the top of Supervising Special Agent is $97,470, an increase of about 130% over the entry minimum.
What each title does
The specifications themselves are the clearest guide to what separates these titles. Here is how each one opens.
- Special Agent 3: Under direction of the Supervising Special Agent, or other supervisory official, in the Department of Treasury, conducts the less complex intra and interstate…
- Special Agent 2: Under the direction of a Supervising Special Agent, or other supervisory official in the Department of Treasury, conducts intra and interstate investigation functions…
- Special Agent 1: Under direction of the Supervising Special Agent, or other supervisory official in the Department of Treasury, conducts and/or assists in the supervision of intra and…
- Supervising Special Agent: Under direction of the Chief or other supervisory official, in the Department of the Treasury, supervises subordinate Special Agents or other professional staff…
Getting in: the stated requirements
Across the 4 titles we have parsed, the education requirements read as a master's degree on 3 of them and a bachelor's degree on 1 of them. Stated experience runs from 1 year at the lowest rung to 3 at the highest, which is the main thing separating one level from the next.
Every title here carries a license or certification requirement, so the credential matters more than the exam score. On how the jobs are filled: 4 are competitive, filled from an eligible list after an open competitive or promotional examination.
Who actually employs these titles
State payroll records show 29 people working under 4 of this family's titles, spread across 1 agency. Treasury alone accounts for about 100% of them.
- Treasury — 29 employees
Median actual pay varies across the family, from $72,582 for Special Agent 3 up to $139,760 for Supervising Special Agent. 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 3 salary schedules (FA, J, and K), 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: NJLESA, NJSOLEA, and PBA-SLEU.
Where these jobs exist
These are state titles, hired by New Jersey departments, commissions and boards through the Civil Service Commission's announcement and eligible list process rather than by an ordinary job posting. How state hiring works, and which agencies employ what.
Related titles elsewhere in the plan
Nearby in the plan, ranked by how distinctive the shared terms are rather than by how many words happen to match.
- Special Agent Trainee ($68,381 to $71,668, state jurisdiction)
- Purchasing Agent (local jurisdiction)
- Purchasing Agent (local jurisdiction)
- Prosecutors Agent (local jurisdiction)
- Assistant Purchasing Agent (local jurisdiction)
- Agricultural Products Agent 1 ($52,308 to $75,954, state jurisdiction) — in the Agricultural Products Agent family
Common questions about Special Agent jobs
How many Special Agent titles are there in New Jersey civil service?
The Special Agent family holds 4 title codes arranged across 3 levels. Each code is a separate classification with its own published specification, requirements and salary treatment.
What does a Special Agent earn in New Jersey?
Published salary data for this family runs from $75,122 at the bottom of Special Agent 3 to $172,593 at the top of Supervising Special Agent. 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 Special Agent?
Yes for most of the family. 4 of the 4 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 Special Agent need?
The most common education requirement in this family is a master's degree, named on 3 of the 4 titles. Stated experience ranges from 1 to 3 years depending on the rung. 4 of the titles also require a license or certification. Read the individual specification for the exact wording, including any experience substitution.
Which agencies employ Special Agent staff?
State payroll records show 29 people in this family across 1 agency, with Treasury the largest at 29. Local government employers are not covered by that extract.
Is Special Agent 1 higher or lower than Special Agent 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.