The Department of Human Resource Management (DHRM) benchmarked the salaries of 200 Commonwealth working titles for the 2025 Biennial compensation study. The study focused on a review of salary data representing private sector companies and public sector organizations with annual revenues and annual budgets, respectively, greater than $50 billion. A portion of the positions selected for the study were identified as hard-to-fill roles within the Commonwealth. The remainder of the positions selected for the study illustrate a representative sample of classified roles across the range of (i) Commonwealth occupational families and career groups and (ii) the Commonwealth salary bands used to maintain the salaries of classified roles.

As noted above, the study focused on Commonwealth employee base salaries compared to market. The study has not compared the total compensation of classified Commonwealth employees – the value of salaries and benefits – to market.

The Commonwealth is also reviewing the impact of changes to the Commonwealth retirement plan on compensation for Commonwealth employees. The effects of the retirement plan modifications are outside the scope of the salary study and will be discussed in Section II of the report.

The 2025 Biennial Compensation Report produced the following data:

• On average, Commonwealth base salaries among the positions benchmarked fall below the private and public sector market data by 16% and 5%, respectively.

• One-half of the benchmarked job title salaries are within 20% of the market median salary data, which designates market-competitive salaries consistent with practice. Salaries do not have to be equal to a market target to be considered market-competitive but within a defined range around the market target.

• Average salaries in 50% of the Commonwealth job titles benchmarked are within 20% of the private sector median salary data.

• Average salaries in 60% of the Commonwealth job titles benchmarked are within 20% of the public sector/government industry median salary data.

• On an occupational family basis, Commonwealth employee base salaries in benchmarked roles compare to market as follows:

• Private Sector Data vs Commonwealth Base Salaries

− Farthest Below Market Median: Natural Resources & Applied Sciences (n=1 title; -39%), Public Safety (n=12 titles; -34%), and Trades & Operations (n=1 title; -28%)

− Closest to Market Median: Engineering & Technology (n=21; -4%)

− Farthest Above Market Median: On an overall average basis, no Commonwealth occupational family falls above market median, but average salaries in 10 benchmarked Commonwealth titles are more than 20% above the market median salary.

• Public Sector Data vs Commonwealth Base Salaries

− Farthest Below Market Median: Natural Resources & Applied Sciences (n=1 title; -30%), Trades & Operations (n=1 title; -18%) Administrative Services (n=102 titles; -14%)

− Closest to Market Median: Educational & Media Services (n=34 titles; -10%) and Public Safety (n=10 titles; -10%)

− Farthest Above Market Median: Engineering & Technology (n=21; +11%)

• Statewide salary adjustments of 18% (2022 to 2025) have brought base salaries closer to the public sector data. Additionally, targeted increases among select agencies to starting salaries have resulted in base salaries, on average, exceeding the market 25th percentile public sector data by 9 percent. However, the targeted salary increases are not as impactful when looking at the overall population. Of the Commonwealth employees that are in a benchmarked position, the average base salaries fall more than 20% below the 25th percentile public sector data.

• Variance to the private sector has increased. Overall average variance with the median dropped 3 percentage points, from -13% in 2023 to -16% in 2025.

− The average base salaries of Commonwealth employees in 45 benchmarked roles currently fall more than 20% below the 25th percentile general industry/private sector data.

− Median base salary increases in the private sector were 4% in 2024 and 3.5% in 2025. Average base salary increases in the public sector were 4.8% in 2024 and 4.2% in 2025. In the Commonwealth, classified employees received 3% salary increases each year in 2024 and 2025.

Note: There is variation in the Commonwealth job titles benchmarked each year the study has been conducted, i.e., the same job titles have not been benchmarked each year. This component of a market review can limit a longitudinal study of the market competitiveness of salaries for specific positions from one study to the next. However, this component of the benchmark study approach is consistent with leading market practice and is generally seen as a best practice to provide an all-around view of market competitiveness in an organization’s pay program over time.

• A lack of consistency and standardization in Commonwealth working titles continues to hamper the market salary study (see table 1). The Commonwealth continues to provide agencies with a great deal of flexibility in using working titles in addition to the Commonwealth’s broader set of job code titles to capture unique position requirements by agency. However, this lack of job title standardization leads to inefficiency in salary benchmarking – it expands the list of job titles to consider for the market study which at the same time limits DHRM’s ability to capture the full range of Commonwealth positions that can be compared alongside the Commonwealth working titles included in the biennial salary study. DHRM has a goal of standardizing the classified job titles to increase the efficiency with which the salary study is conducted.

In general, variations in appropriated salary adjustments have presented some challenges for Commonwealth agencies when it comes to building a proactive and sustainable approach to addressing compensation concerns. The design of the Commonwealth salary bands has contributed to the market-alignment challenges.

• The statewide adjustment method of awarding the same salary increase to classified employees across the Commonwealth exacerbates the market misalignment of classified employee salaries. It also prevents the Commonwealth from awarding outstanding employee performance, which contributes to retention issues DHRM and agency leaders often see with classified employees at the 5-year tenure mark.

• Annual salary increases for Commonwealth classified employees have lagged the market rate of increases in the public and private sectors. As a result, the variance to market median private sector salaries has grown and it has improved by only a few percentage points in comparison to the market median public sector salaries.

• The current classified salary bands, the design of which has not changed in 25 years, hamper the Commonwealth’s ability to pay competitive starting salaries.

• Established minimum wage increases that will be implemented in January 2026 may further exacerbate salary compression in the first four salary bands.

• The market-aligned salary increase methodology recommended as part of the 2020 mandated Compensation Workgroup to address these issues has not been adopted.

This approach is still relevant for the current market. Therefore, DHRM is once again recommending this methodology be implemented to help alleviate market misalignment and to enable Commonwealth agencies the autonomy to address position-specific recruitment, retention, and salary compression challenges.