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Job outlook for parking enforcement officers in the United States
Parking enforcement officer job growth summary. After extensive research, interviews, and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:
The projected parking enforcement officer job growth rate is 3% from 2018-2028.
About 20,600 new jobs for parking enforcement officers are projected over the next decade.
Parking enforcement officer salaries have increased 11% for parking enforcement officers in the last 5 years.
There are over 5,675 parking enforcement officers currently employed in the United States.
There are 120,053 active parking enforcement officer job openings in the US.
The average parking enforcement officer salary is $38,755.
Are parking enforcement officer jobs in demand?
Parking enforcement officer job and salary trends over time
Parking enforcement officer jobs over time
Parking enforcement officer job growth rate over time
| Year | # of jobs | % of population |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 5,675 | 0.00% |
| 2020 | 5,759 | 0.00% |
| 2019 | 5,827 | 0.00% |
| 2018 | 6,147 | 0.00% |
| 2017 | 6,597 | 0.00% |
Average parking enforcement officer salary over time
Parking enforcement officer salary by year
| Year | Avg. salary | Hourly rate | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | $38,755 | $18.63 | +2.8% |
| 2025 | $37,695 | $18.12 | +2.7% |
| 2024 | $36,700 | $17.64 | +2.1% |
| 2023 | $35,954 | $17.29 | +2.8% |
| 2022 | $34,959 | $16.81 | +3.9% |
Parking enforcement officer jobs by state
Most common states for parking enforcement officers
| Rank | State | Population | # of jobs | Employment/ 1000ppl |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Idaho | 1,716,943 | 311 | 18% |
| 2 | Massachusetts | 6,859,819 | 1,180 | 17% |
| 3 | Minnesota | 5,576,606 | 972 | 17% |
| 4 | North Dakota | 755,393 | 126 | 17% |
| 5 | Rhode Island | 1,059,639 | 163 | 15% |
| 6 | Virginia | 8,470,020 | 1,221 | 14% |
| 7 | New Hampshire | 1,342,795 | 189 | 14% |
| 8 | Vermont | 623,657 | 86 | 14% |
| 9 | Maryland | 6,052,177 | 759 | 13% |
| 10 | Colorado | 5,607,154 | 717 | 13% |
| 11 | Iowa | 3,145,711 | 397 | 13% |
| 12 | Nebraska | 1,920,076 | 248 | 13% |
| 13 | New Jersey | 9,005,644 | 1,061 | 12% |
| 14 | South Dakota | 869,666 | 107 | 12% |
| 15 | Illinois | 12,802,023 | 1,381 | 11% |
| 16 | North Carolina | 10,273,419 | 1,131 | 11% |
| 17 | Arizona | 7,016,270 | 787 | 11% |
| 18 | Nevada | 2,998,039 | 337 | 11% |
| 19 | New Mexico | 2,088,070 | 229 | 11% |
| 20 | Maine | 1,335,907 | 145 | 11% |
Most common cities for parking enforcement officers
| Rank | City | # of jobs | Employment/ 1000ppl | Avg. salary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dover | 2 | 6% | $39,079 |
| 2 | Chattanooga | 4 | 2% | $30,162 |
| 3 | West Palm Beach | 2 | 2% | $35,788 |
| 4 | Allentown | 1 | 1% | $42,444 |
| 5 | Charlotte | 2 | 0% | $37,024 |
| 6 | Houston | 2 | 0% | $30,704 |
| 7 | Anchorage | 1 | 0% | $50,605 |
| 8 | Detroit | 1 | 0% | $35,298 |
| 9 | Miami | 1 | 0% | $35,717 |
| 10 | San Jose | 1 | 0% | $56,832 |
| 11 | Spokane | 1 | 0% | $55,475 |
Parking Enforcement Officer job outlook: Expert opinions
Our panel of parking enforcement officer experts
Governors State University
Murray State University
Pennsylvania State University - Harrisburg
Georgia Southern University
Georgia Southern University
Curry College
Jill Myers
Director of the School of Law Enforcement and Justice AdministrationWhat general advice would you give to a Parking Enforcement Officer?
Jill Myers: The more skill sets you have the better prepared you will be for future advancement and salary increases. Having a solid education, a bachelor of science degree in criminal justice and a masters degree will sometimes result in increased wages. Having federal certifications and competencies will enhance your opportunities and create potential marketability for your career. It is always a great skill set to have people skills, communication in both written and oral formats. It will enhance your ability to explain yourself in court, in the warrants one prepares, and with dealing with the public in all circumstances from victims and witnesses and suspects, to legislators, the funding sources like mayors and city council and the public at large.
Dr. Janet Brewer
Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice & SociologyGovernors State University
Criminal Justice And Corrections
What general advice would you give to a Parking Enforcement Officer?
Dr. Janet Brewer: Market yourself as someone who can increase revenue or decrease workload for that entity. Use your school's alumni network to its fullest.
What Parking Enforcement Officer skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?
Dr. Janet Brewer: In law enforcement, leadership, critical thinking and novel problem-solving skills are going to be of paramount importance. This is because the world is becoming increasingly complex, as we learned during the pandemic, demanding that people are able to think outside the box, and quickly. Within the court system, I think interdisciplinary skill sets will be important as therapeutic and restorative justice interventions continue to flourish. For example, increasingly, diversion programs and specialty courts are calling for skill sets in mental health, law, and public policy simultaneously.
What will help Parking Enforcement Officers increase their earning potential?
Dr. Janet Brewer: Think about skill sets and transferrable skills rather than traditional job labels. For example, I am someone who can advocate, critically analyze, and communicate persuasively rather than I am a lawyer.
What will help Parking Enforcement Officers increase their earning potential?
Dr. Alaina Steele: Emotionally intelligent communication skills are vital in the criminal justice field. Roles in law enforcement, courts, and corrections all require the ability to successfully interact with community members in their most vulnerable and challenging moments. "Strong oral and written communication skills" has long been an essential job requirement in postings for CJ positions, but the ways in which people communicate-and how conflicts arise-are constantly changing. Tools for de-escalation and problem solving must evolve alongside them, requiring criminal justice professionals to be lifelong students of human behavior. Adaptability in communication style is especially crucial when working with members of marginalized populations that may have cultural, intellectual, or neurodevelopmental differences in the ways they give and receive information. The other thing is the ability to navigate technology. With the rapid expansion of AI across all sectors of society and unprecedented questions of privacy, legality, and the potential for malicious use following close behind, new challenges will require attention from legal professionals. Criminal justice actors will also need to be able to ethically evaluate and responsibly use the new and changing tools available to them in their own day-to-day work.
What will help Parking Enforcement Officers increase their earning potential?
James Gibbens: Mr. Johnson, Good Morning, Our Law Enforcement/Corrections instructors are, for the most part, active law enforcement officers working in the field or recently retired from the industry. We have no full-time instructors/professors teaching in the Law Enforcement Academies. Most of our students are sponsored and employed when the Academy starts so there is little to no recruitment, everyone is paid to attend class. Brevard County has a number of Law Enforcement agencies. My suggestion is to contact one of the agencies and speak with their Human Resource Department. Locally, in today's employment climate there are many employment opportunities in the Public Safety Sectors.
Jennifer Gibbs Ph.D.
Associate ProfessorPennsylvania State University - Harrisburg
School of Public Affairs, Criminal Justice Program
What skills stand out on Parking Enforcement Officer resumes?
Jennifer Gibbs Ph.D.: Police officers need many skills to be successful on the job. The most important are written and oral communication skills and the ability to make ethical decisions with limited information quickly. Written communications skills are crucial. If a police report is poorly worded or incomplete, it can derail a criminal case. Police officers also need to talk to people of all ages from all walks of life in any circumstance. Often, police meet people on what may be the worst day of their lives when emotions are running high. Police need to be able to help calm a person while gathering information. Police need to be able to use their words and body language to empathize with someone who has been victimized, and they need to project authority, so people making poor decisions obey their commands.
This may be common sense, but research has demonstrated that communication and ethical decision-making skills are important for police officers. (See the research article published in 2017 in the Journal of Criminal Justice Education, entitled "An assessment of the relative importance of criminal justice learning objectives," by Baker and colleagues.) Baker and colleagues asked students, professionals, and college professors to rate the skills of hypothetical job applicants. These participants rated the following as the most important characteristics for criminal justice applicants (including law enforcement officers):
Ethics
Oral communication
Critical thinking
Sensitivity to diversity
Written communication skills
Logan Somers Ph.D.
Assistant ProfessorGeorgia Southern University
Criminal Justice and Criminology Department
What skills stand out on Parking Enforcement Officer resumes?
Logan Somers Ph.D.: Skills and experiences that stand out on Law Enforcement Officer resumes are not too dissimilar from desirable qualities in other industries. First, even though the vast majority of police departments do not have an education requirement beyond high school, most recruits entering the academy do have at least some college experience. Therefore, having an associate's or bachelor's degree will make you competitive. Further, policing in today's society requires officers to be elite communicators, critical thinkers, and problem-solvers. Any prior work experience that can be used to demonstrate how you performed those skills under pressure should be highlighted. Lastly, any prior community service and or mentoring should be included. Having these experiences displays your commitment to improving your community and bettering the lives of those around you.
What soft skills should all Parking Enforcement Officers possess?
Logan Somers Ph.D.: Officers are tasked with handling a wide range of service-oriented (e.g., providing directions, conducting wellness checks, assisting a citizen whose car has broken down) and order maintenance (e.g., attending to noise complaints, settling domestic disputes, directing traffic) duties that go beyond just crime enforcement. This necessitates that an officer must possess numerous intangible skills. These include the ability to communicate effectively and treat citizens in a respectful and courteous manner. Doing this will go a long way towards keeping situations from escalating and building positive community relationships. Officers also have a great deal of discretion, meaning that in most citizen interactions, they have numerous actions and inactions that they can choose from. For example, officers conducting traffic enforcement typically have the discretion to decide who to stop, where to stop them, and whether to give a citation or a warning. Given this great deal of power, having the ability to think critically and ethically are paramount.
What hard/technical skills are most important for Parking Enforcement Officers?
Logan Somers Ph.D.: A significant portion of an officer's day can often be spent filling out paperwork. Every stop, citation, warrant, arrest, or use of force incident typically requires forms that need to be filled out and sent to supervisors for review. This makes the ability to write proficiently and provide a descriptive narrative of events crucial for day-to-day police work.
Amanda Graham Ph.D.
Assistant ProfessorGeorgia Southern University
Criminal Justice & Criminology
What skills stand out on Parking Enforcement Officer resumes?
Amanda Graham Ph.D.: Completed Degree - Although not required for most departments around the country, the completion of a higher-ed degree in any subject signals to hiring committees that the applicant is (1) seeking to improve themselves, (2) open to learning new things, and (3) capable of finishing a goal that they set out to reach.
A second language - Particularly for candidates that speak Spanish fluently, the ability to speak a second language is of increasing importance as communities around the country continue to diversify.
What soft skills should all Parking Enforcement Officers possess?
Amanda Graham Ph.D.: Verbal Communication - The ability to talk to/hold a conversation with a stranger is essential in the human enterprise of policing. It is one of the best tools and officer has with them to address any situation.
Ethical Decision-Making (Using Discretion Appropriately) - The ability to make the best decision in a given situation is absolutely critical in policing. Not only do officers need to have sound and logical judgment, but also the capacity to make ethically sound decisions helps to prevent the introduction of bias into the criminal justice system.
What hard/technical skills are most important for Parking Enforcement Officers?
Amanda Graham Ph.D.: Written Communication/Writing/English - Policing heavily involves being able to articulate your ideas in writing, especially for writing reports and warrants. These documents demand officers provide their probable cause for a case; without this capacity, cases can be dropped and warrant applications unsuccessful.
What skills will help Parking Enforcement Officers earn the most?
Amanda Graham Ph.D.: Although pay is often determined through Civil Service Boards/Commissions and Police Unions, earning potential can be increased through the completion of higher-ed degrees (e.g., Bachelors, Masters), the ability to speak a second language, and the willingness/ability to work during less-conventional hours (i.e., overnight shifts often receive additional pay/shift differential) or additional hours (i.e., overtime).
Will there be an enduring impact of the coronavirus pandemic on Parking Enforcement Officers?
Jennifer Balboni: Yes! Without question, over the last year, the pandemic has impacted nearly every occupation around the globe. These effects were felt most keenly in the medical field, but the impact in the criminal justice field has been incredibly steep as well, and the changes for police, courts, and corrections promise to be around even once this pandemic is more under control. First, it's important to note that police professionals are currently managing twin crises: the pandemic and public tumult stemming from a series of well-publicized needless deaths of young African Americans at the hands of police. It's nearly impossible to disentangle the impact of the pandemic from the impact of the crisis of legitimacy in policing, as these are happening simultaneously. This means that, in addition to the stressors of the job related to the pandemic, policing right now is fundamentally more stressful. As the public demands reform, organizations are shifting their priorities in response. New graduates who wish to pursue law enforcement would be wise to identify agencies that share their value system and commitment to justice so that they are part of this field's positive evolution.
In the fields of corrections and the courts, the implications of the pandemic are equally important-- although much less discussed in the media. Courts are currently facing significant backlogs (few juries have been convened during the last year-leaving a logjam of many open criminal cases). Correctional institutions have used the pandemic as the impetus to de-carcerate, which shifts responsibilities from institutional to community corrections, as those released are often in need of support services in order to be successful. Analysts predict that the reduction in the incarcerated population could bring some savings to local and state budgets, and this may provide some pressure to make the efforts to de-carcerate more permanent. Both of these fields are adapting and it is likely that the pandemic's impact will be long-lasting.
While new graduates certainly will be facing unprecedented challenges in their new professional roles, it's important to consider that this stress can also bring significant opportunity. If necessity is the mother of invention, then creative and energetic graduates may have more opportunity to implement innovative responses they've learned about in college in these fields in the near future.