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Public Service & Safety

National Career Cluster · the map of work

Public Service & Safety is one of the 14 national career clusters — the U.S. Department of Education's map that divides the whole world of work into broad families, each crosswalked to occupations, education programs, and industries. This cluster spans 108 occupations across 5 sub-clusters, employing about 11,401,270 workers, with a median wage of $67,710.

What's in this cluster

A career cluster is a navigational grouping, not a measured score. The counts below come from the framework's official crosswalk; employment and pay are aggregated from BLS OEWS (national, cross-industry, May 2024) across the occupations in the cluster.

108 occupations
5 sub-clusters
11,401,270 workers (BLS)
$67,710 median pay
249 education programs

Across occupations with wage data, the middle range (25th–75th percentile of occupation medians) runs $52,375 – $93,155. This describes the cluster, not any one job or person.

Sub-clusters

The framework splits each cluster into sub-clusters — tighter families of related work. The count is the number of occupations the crosswalk places in each.

Sub-cluster Occupations
Local, State, & Federal Services 50
Military & National Security 31
Public Safety 26
Judicial Systems 11
Emergency Response 6

Largest occupations in this cluster

Exposure quadrant: AI task-overlap percentile vs Median pay AI task-overlap (horizontal) versus median pay (vertical), each as a percentile across all scored occupations, for 38 occupations in Public Service & Safety. Overlap measures shared tasks with AI, not automation. Lower overlap · higher pay Higher overlap · higher pay Higher overlap · lower pay Lower overlap · lower pay Postal Service Mail Sorters, Processors, and Processing Machine Operators Firefighters Lifeguards, Ski Patrol, and Other Recreational Protective Service Workers Cooks, Institution and Cafeteria First-Line Supervisors of Firefighting and Prevention Workers Facilities Managers Security Guards Protective Service Workers, All Other Police and Sheriff's Patrol Officers Postal Service Clerks School Bus Monitors Community Health Workers Managers, All Other Probation Officers and Correctional Treatment Specialists Compliance Officers File Clerks Civil Engineers Court, Municipal, and License Clerks Computer Occupations, All Other Tax Examiners and Collectors, and Revenue Agents AI task-overlap percentile → ↑ Median pay
The largest occupations in this cluster with both an AI task-overlap score and a wage, plotted by task-overlap percentile (horizontal) and median-pay percentile (vertical). Overlap measures shared tasks with AI, not automation.

Occupations in this cluster with the most workers nationally (BLS OEWS, May 2024), each linked to its full profile. Employment and pay describe the occupation, not an individual.

Occupation Workers Median pay
Security Guards 1,241,770 $38,370
Management Analysts 893,900 $101,190
Lawyers 747,750 $151,160
Police and Sheriff's Patrol Officers 666,990 $76,290
Managers, All Other 630,980 $136,550
Cooks, Institution and Cafeteria 448,260 $36,450
Computer Occupations, All Other 439,380 $108,970
Compliance Officers 397,770 $78,420
Paralegals and Legal Assistants 367,220 $61,010
Correctional Officers and Jailers 365,380 $57,970
Civil Engineers 355,410 $99,590
Postal Service Mail Carriers 336,040 $57,490
Firefighters 332,240 $59,530
Human Resources Managers 215,520 $140,030
Dispatchers, Except Police, Fire, and Ambulance 211,000 $48,880
Social and Community Service Managers 195,490 $78,240
Court, Municipal, and License Clerks 170,010 $47,700
Eligibility Interviewers, Government Programs 156,260 $51,500
Legal Secretaries and Administrative Assistants 154,540 $54,140
First-Line Supervisors of Police and Detectives 153,130 $105,980
Information and Record Clerks, All Other 143,910 $48,360
Lifeguards, Ski Patrol, and Other Recreational Protective Service Workers 143,590 $33,720
Facilities Managers 141,090 $104,690
Construction and Building Inspectors 137,210 $72,120
Postal Service Mail Sorters, Processors, and Processing Machine Operators 111,930 $56,530
Detectives and Criminal Investigators 110,790 $93,580
Community and Social Service Specialists, All Other 110,390 $54,940
Public Safety Telecommunicators 101,140 $50,730
First-Line Supervisors of Firefighting and Prevention Workers 93,680 $92,430
Crossing Guards and Flaggers 90,180 $37,700
Probation Officers and Correctional Treatment Specialists 86,820 $64,520
Environmental Scientists and Specialists, Including Health 84,930 $80,060
Protective Service Workers, All Other 83,110 $41,600
File Clerks 78,980 $41,270
Postal Service Clerks 78,060 $61,630
School Bus Monitors 72,140 $34,980
First-Line Supervisors of Security Workers 70,310 $58,610
Engineering Technologists and Technicians, Except Drafters, All Other 64,410 $77,390
Community Health Workers 60,730 $51,030
Tax Examiners and Collectors, and Revenue Agents 53,530 $59,740

AI exposure across this cluster

Two published studies estimate how exposed each occupation is to today's AI. The OpenAI "GPTs are GPTs" study rates the share of an occupation's tasks a large language model (with tools) could speed up by half or more; averaged across this cluster it is 44% — 61st percentile of the 14 clusters. The independent Felten/Raj/Seamans AI Occupational Exposure index averages 0.56 here.

Computed across the 83 of 108 occupations in this cluster that carry a published exposure score.

Exposure measures where AI could assist tasks — it is not a prediction that these jobs will be automated. High exposure most often means augmentation (faster work), and many high-exposure occupations are also projected to grow.

Where the work sits

The framework anchors each cluster to one or more NAICS industry sectors — the parts of the economy where this work concentrates.

Education programs that lead here

A sample of the 249 CIP 2020 instructional programs the framework crosswalks to this cluster — the fields of study that prepare people for this work.

  • Accounting
  • Accounting and Finance
  • Acoustics
  • Administration of Special Education
  • Adult and Continuing Education Administration
  • Advanced Legal Research/Studies, General
  • Advanced Military and Operational Studies
  • Aerospace Ground Equipment Technology
  • Agriculture Law
  • American Government and Politics (United States)
  • American/U.S. Law/Legal Studies/Jurisprudence
  • Anthrozoology
  • Applied Demography
  • Applied Economics
  • Applied Statistics, General
  • Applied/Public Sociology
  • Archives/Archival Administration
  • Arts and Entertainment Law
  • Astronomy
  • Astronomy and Astrophysics, Other
  • Astrophysics
  • Atmospheric Chemistry and Climatology
  • Atmospheric Physics and Dynamics
  • Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, General

Sources for this page

Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

Data compiled June 3, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

Cite this page
Plain

Singulariki. "Public Service & Safety." Singulariki: a source-backed encyclopedia of work. Built from O*NET 30.3; BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) May 2024; Census NAICS 2022; CIP-2020 2020; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130; AI Occupational Exposure (AIOE) Felten, Raj & Seamans. Accessed June 7, 2026. https://singulariki.com/clusters/public-service-safety

APA

Singulariki. (2026). Public Service & Safety. Singulariki: a source-backed encyclopedia of work. Retrieved June 7, 2026, from https://singulariki.com/clusters/public-service-safety

BibTeX 
@misc{singulariki-public-service-safety,
  title  = {Public Service & Safety},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) May 2024; Census NAICS 2022; CIP-2020 2020; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130; AI Occupational Exposure (AIOE) Felten, Raj & Seamans. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/clusters/public-service-safety}
}

Citations name the underlying public dataset releases — they reflect what this page is built from, not just the URL.