--- title: "How Much Does a Press Secretary Make in 2026? | Metaintro" canonical: "https://www.metaintro.com/blog/how-much-does-press-secretary-make" language: "en" author: "drashtigarach" published: "2026-09-09T17:49:57.000Z" modified: "2026-09-09T17:49:57.000Z" --- [Back to Blog](/blog) [Salary](/blog/tag/salary)[Career](/blog/tag/career)[Jobs](/blog/tag/jobs)[Media](/blog/tag/media)[Government Jobs](/blog/tag/government-jobs) # How Much Does a Press Secretary Make in 2026? Salary Breakdown by Level Press secretary pay anchors to the $74,750 BLS median for public relations specialists (May 2025). See how employer type and seniority move the real number. [![Drashti Garach](https://cdn.metaintro.com/rs:fill:40:40/q:72/plain/images/5719d740-e510-42bc-8017-e040d145f35f_1766029465094.png)Drashti Garach @DrashtiGarach](/blog/author/drashtigarach) [September 9, 2026](/blog/archive/2026/09)16 min read ![How Much Does a Press Secretary Make in 2026? Salary Breakdown by Level](https://cdn.metaintro.com/rs:fill:1200:675/q:78/plain/images/9615.jpg) [https://x.com/intent/tweet?text=How%20Much%20Does%20a%20Press%20Secretary%20Make%20in%202026%3F%20Salary%20Breakdown%20by%20Level&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fhow-much-does-press-secretary-make](https://x.com/intent/tweet?text=How%20Much%20Does%20a%20Press%20Secretary%20Make%20in%202026%3F%20Salary%20Breakdown%20by%20Level&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fhow-much-does-press-secretary-make)[http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fhow-much-does-press-secretary-make](http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fhow-much-does-press-secretary-make)[https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fhow-much-does-press-secretary-make&title=How%20Much%20Does%20a%20Press%20Secretary%20Make%20in%202026%3F%20Salary%20Breakdown%20by%20Level](https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fhow-much-does-press-secretary-make&title=How%20Much%20Does%20a%20Press%20Secretary%20Make%20in%202026%3F%20Salary%20Breakdown%20by%20Level)[mailto:?subject=How%20Much%20Does%20a%20Press%20Secretary%20Make%20in%202026%3F%20Salary%20Breakdown%20by%20Level&body=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fhow-much-does-press-secretary-make](mailto:?subject=How%20Much%20Does%20a%20Press%20Secretary%20Make%20in%202026%3F%20Salary%20Breakdown%20by%20Level&body=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fhow-much-does-press-secretary-make) Anyone typing "press secretary salary" into a search bar is usually trying to answer one of two questions: what does this job pay in general, and what someone should personally expect or ask for. The honest starting point is the [$74,750 median annual wage the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports for public relations specialists](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/media-and-communication/public-relations-specialists.htm) as of May 2025, because that is the closest verifiable government number to the press secretary title, even though it is not a press-secretary-specific figure. At [Metaintro](https://www.metaintro.com), we track how press secretary roles get posted and paid across the market, which is what turns a national median into a number you can actually negotiate against. ## How Much Does a Press Secretary Actually Make? The federal government's Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks wages by occupational code, not by informal job title, and there has never been a distinct code for "press secretary." Press secretaries get folded into SOC code 27-3031, public relations specialists, alongside communications coordinators, media relations staff, spokespeople, and public affairs officers across every industry from hospitals to tech startups to city government. That occupational group's median annual wage was $74,750 in May 2025, according to the [BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/media-and-communication/public-relations-specialists.htm). That median is a genuinely useful anchor because it reflects a huge, nationally representative sample of people doing public relations style work. It is not, however, a press secretary specific figure, and treating it as one would be misleading in both directions. Some press secretaries, particularly junior ones at small municipalities or advocacy nonprofits, earn well below that median. Others, particularly senior press secretaries at large federal agencies, statewide campaigns, or Fortune 500 companies, earn multiples of it. The title is doing a lot of work to obscure a very wide pay band. ## Why Doesn't the Government Track Press Secretary Pay Separately? Occupational classification systems like the Standard Occupational Classification exist to group similar work by task content, not by title prestige or organizational context. A press secretary's day to day work, writing statements, fielding reporter calls, prepping a principal for interviews, monitoring coverage, and coordinating messaging, overlaps heavily with what a corporate communications manager or nonprofit media relations director does. The [Occupational Information Network profile for public relations specialists](https://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/27-3031.00), which is maintained under a U.S. Department of Labor sponsored program, lists tasks like "write interesting and effective press releases" and "respond to requests for information from the media" as core duties, and those tasks describe a press secretary just as accurately as they describe a generalist PR specialist at a mid-size company. The practical effect is that anyone researching press secretary pay has to layer contextual judgment on top of the government number rather than pulling a single clean figure off a government table. That is normal for a lot of specialized job titles, not just this one, and it is worth knowing so a candidate does not walk into a negotiation quoting a number as if it were more precise than it actually is. > The median annual wage for public relations specialists was [$74,750](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/media-and-communication/public-relations-specialists.htm) in May 2025. > Source: [U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/media-and-communication/public-relations-specialists.htm). ## What Actually Moves a Press Secretary's Pay Above or below the Median? Four variables do most of the work: employer type, seniority level, geography, and the visibility of the principal the press secretary represents. Employer type is probably the single biggest lever. A press secretary for a small city or a two-person state legislative office is frequently paid on a public sector scale that tops out well below the private sector PR median, sometimes in the $45,000 to $65,000 range depending on the state and cost of living. A press secretary for a large corporation, a national trade association, or a well-funded political campaign can clear six figures even at a mid-career stage, because private sector and campaign budgets simply flex more than a municipal communications line item. Federal government press secretaries, including those working for cabinet agencies, sit on the General Schedule pay scale, which the [U.S. Office of Personnel Management](https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/) publishes by grade and locality, and a seasoned agency press secretary can land at a GS-13 or GS-14 equivalent, which in many localities pushes total compensation past $130,000. Seniority compounds employer type rather than replacing it. An entry-level press assistant supporting a communications director is a different pay grade entirely from the press secretary who is the final word on a principal's public statements. Political press secretaries in particular tend to see fast pay escalation with campaign cycle experience, because a press secretary who has survived a competitive statewide race or a contested primary carries a kind of battle-tested credibility that is hard to replicate through corporate PR experience alone. Geography matters in the ordinary way it matters for almost every white collar job. Press secretary roles concentrated in Washington D.C., New York, and a handful of state capitals tend to pay above the national median for public relations specialists simply because those labor markets are more competitive and cost of living is higher. A press secretary in a smaller state capital or a mid-size city government is likely closer to or below the median. Finally, the visibility and stakes of the principal matter enormously and are the hardest variable to quantify with public data. A press secretary managing daily national media inquiries for a governor, a member of Congress, or a Fortune 100 CEO is fielding a volume and intensity of scrutiny that a communications generalist rarely faces, and compensation tends to reflect that pressure once a candidate has proven they can handle it under fire. ## How Does a Press Secretary's Pay Compare to Other Communications Roles? Inside the broader public relations specialists category tracked by the BLS, press secretaries sit somewhere in the middle to upper range of typical communications titles, ahead of entry level PR coordinators and media relations assistants, and generally below chief communications officers, vice presidents of public affairs, and senior political consultants who often operate outside the standard employee compensation structure entirely through consulting arrangements. It helps to think of the career ladder in three broad tiers. At the entry tier sit press assistants, communications coordinators, and junior public affairs staff, who are typically building the skill set a press secretary needs: fast, accurate writing under deadline pressure, comfort with reporters, and command of a principal's positions across a wide range of topics. At the middle tier sit working press secretaries themselves, department communications directors, and senior media relations managers, which is roughly where the BLS public relations specialists median is centered. At the top tier sit communications chiefs, campaign managers who also handle press, and White House level press secretaries, whose pay (and, for political appointees, disclosure requirements) is set by an entirely different set of rules than the private sector median reflects. A helpful comparison point outside government data is [the Public Relations Society of America](https://www.prsa.org/), the largest professional association for the field, which offers salary surveys and career resources to its membership and can give a press secretary a sense of how compensation compares across the wider communications industry, not just inside government roles. ## What Does a Press Secretary Actually Need to Earn That Pay? Most working press secretaries hold a bachelor's degree in communications, journalism, political science, or a closely related field, though the path into the job is famously more about demonstrated writing speed and media relationships than about credentials on paper. Programs like [the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University](https://newhouse.syr.edu/), [the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism](https://annenberg.usc.edu/), [American University's School of Communication](https://www.american.edu/soc/), and Georgetown's Communication, Culture, and Technology program all place a meaningful number of graduates into press and communications roles in Washington D.C. and beyond, partly because of location and partly because of alumni networks inside government and political communications. Beyond formal education, professional credentials can help a press secretary signal seniority to a hiring committee. The Public Relations Society of America's Accreditation in Public Relations, described in detail on [the PRSA APR certification page](https://www.prsa.org/about/apr-certification), is one of the more recognized voluntary credentials in the broader PR field, and while it is not a strict requirement for a press secretary role, it can strengthen a resume for someone moving from a communications generalist track into a more senior press facing position. Journalism background is unusually common among press secretaries compared to other PR titles, because a former reporter already understands newsroom deadlines, what makes a quote usable, and how a story actually gets built. Organizations like [the Society of Professional Journalists](https://www.spj.org/) and [the Poynter Institute](https://www.poynter.org/), which trains journalists and communications professionals alike, are common touchpoints for people moving between the newsroom side and the press secretary side of the same conversation. ## Where Do Press Secretaries Actually Work, and Does That Change the Pay Picture? The press secretary title spans a wider range of employers than almost any other communications job. Government press secretaries work at every level from city hall to the White House press briefing room, and [the White House's own briefing room page](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/) is a visible reminder of how public and high stakes that particular version of the job can be. Congressional press secretaries work for individual members of the House and Senate as well as committees, and [the National Press Club](https://www.press.org/), a membership organization for journalists and communications professionals in Washington, is a common professional home base for people moving in and out of those roles. Political campaign press secretaries are a category unto themselves, often working on a compressed calendar tied to an election cycle rather than a steady annual salary, and pay in that world can range from modest nonprofit-style wages on a local race to genuinely competitive compensation on a well-funded statewide or federal campaign. Training programs like [the Campaign Management Institute](https://www.american.edu/spa/cmi/), run out of American University, are common places where aspiring campaign press secretaries first learn the pay norms of that specific track. Trade associations, unions, and advocacy nonprofits also frequently employ a press secretary, sometimes under a different title like communications director, and [the National Association of Government Communicators](https://nagc.com/) is one professional group specifically serving public sector communicators in these kinds of roles. Corporate press secretaries, sometimes titled director of communications or head of external affairs, exist mostly at larger companies with meaningful public visibility or regulatory exposure, and their pay tends to track corporate PR compensation more closely than government pay scales. This is one of the clearest illustrations of why the BLS median has to be read as a floor for context rather than a precise prediction: a corporate press secretary at a large public company and a press secretary for a small nonprofit share a job title and almost nothing else about their compensation structure. ## How Should a Job Seeker Actually Use This Number When Negotiating? The single most useful thing a candidate can do with the BLS median is treat it as a starting anchor to research against, not a number to quote verbatim in a negotiation. A recruiter or hiring manager is going to expect a candidate to know the specific range for the specific employer type, seniority level, and region in question, and showing up only with a national occupational median signals that homework has not been done. That is a large part of why hiring has gotten more evidence based generally. The [SHRM Talent Trends research on recruitment challenges](https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/news/talent-acquisition/shrm-talent-trends-2025-recruitment-challenges) found that 69 percent of organizations reported difficulty recruiting for full-time positions in 2025, down from 77 percent the prior year but still well above the pre-pandemic norm, which means employers in competitive fields like communications are often more willing to negotiate than candidates assume, provided the candidate can make a specific, well-supported case. > [69%](https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/news/talent-acquisition/shrm-talent-trends-2025-recruitment-challenges) of organizations reported difficulty recruiting for full-time positions in 2025, down from 77% the prior year, off a 2022 high of 91%. > Source: [SHRM](https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/news/talent-acquisition/shrm-talent-trends-2025-recruitment-challenges). Practically, that means a press secretary candidate should build a target range from several inputs rather than one: the BLS median as a broad floor, publicly posted salary ranges for comparable government roles when available (many state and city job postings are required to disclose a pay band), the [U.S. Office of Personnel Management's federal pay tables](https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/) if the role in question is a federal position, and informational conversations with people currently doing similar work at similar organizations. [CareerOneStop](https://www.careeronestop.org/), a career exploration site sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor, is a useful free resource for cross-checking regional pay data and typical career paths for communications occupations broadly. ## What Skills Actually Make a Press Secretary Worth More? Fast, clean writing under real time pressure is the baseline skill, and it is worth more than almost anything else in this specific job because a press secretary is frequently drafting a statement, a talking point, or a response to a reporter's question with minutes rather than hours to spare. Employers increasingly try to test for that directly rather than relying on a resume claim. The broader hiring market backs this up: [NACE's Job Outlook research on skills-based hiring](https://www.naceweb.org/job-market/trends-and-predictions/employer-use-of-skills-based-hiring-practices-grows) found that 70 percent of employers now report using skills-based hiring practices, up from 65 percent the year before, with employers leaning on it most heavily during interviewing and screening stages, which for a press secretary role often means a timed writing exercise or a mock press briefing rather than a resume review alone. Media relationship management is the second core skill. A press secretary who already has working relationships with the specific reporters who cover a given beat, whether that beat is a statehouse, a federal agency, or an industry vertical, brings value that is difficult to build from scratch, and that existing network is frequently the thing that justifies a higher offer for a lateral hire. Crisis communications experience is a specific, high value subset of the job. A press secretary who has actually managed a live crisis, whether a scandal, a data breach, a natural disaster response, or an unexpected resignation, and can describe specifically what they did and what the outcome was, tends to command noticeably higher pay than a press secretary whose experience is limited to steady-state, low-drama communications work. Organizations like [the Institute for Public Relations](https://instituteforpr.org/), a nonprofit foundation that funds and publishes PR research, track crisis communications as one of the more consistently in-demand specialty skills across the broader communications field. Finally, comfort operating close to political risk, whether inside government, on a campaign, or in a heavily regulated corporate environment, is its own distinct skill that not every strong writer or media relations professional has. [The American Association of Political Consultants](https://theaapc.org/), a professional group for people working in political campaigns and advocacy, is one place where press secretaries with political experience specifically network and benchmark against peers doing comparable work. ## How Does Experience Level Change the Realistic Salary Range? Early career press secretaries, generally those with zero to three years in a press facing role, are most often either supporting a more senior communications lead or holding the title at a smaller organization where the scope is genuinely narrower. Realistic pay at this stage tends to sit below the BLS public relations specialists median, often in the high $40,000s to low $60,000s depending heavily on sector and region. Mid-career press secretaries, roughly three to eight years in, are where the BLS median becomes a genuinely reasonable benchmark, particularly for people working at mid-size government agencies, established nonprofits, or corporate communications departments. This is also the stage where employer type starts to matter more than years of experience alone, because a mid-career press secretary at a large company or a competitive campaign can already be earning meaningfully more than a peer with identical years of experience at a small municipal government. Senior press secretaries, generally eight or more years in and often having survived at least one high-stakes crisis or campaign cycle, are the group most likely to significantly outearn the median, sometimes by a wide margin, particularly if they have moved into roles with direct access to a highly visible principal such as a governor, a senator, a cabinet secretary, or a chief executive. At this level, pay negotiations increasingly resemble executive-level negotiations rather than standard entry or mid-level hiring, complete with negotiated severance terms, campaign bonus structures, or equity in the case of a corporate role. ## Related Articles - [How Much Does a Screenwriter Make?](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/how-much-does-screenwriter-make) - [How Much Do AHL Players Make?](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/how-much-do-ahl-players-make) - [How Much Do Artists Make?](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/how-much-do-artists-make) - [Salary for Coaching](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/salary-for-coaching) - [Movie Critics Salary](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/movie-critics-salary) - [How Much Do Bloggers Make?](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/how-much-do-bloggers-make) - [How Much Do Authors Make?](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/how-much-do-authors-make) - [How to Negotiate Salary](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/how-to-negotiate-salary) - [Salary Negotiation Tactics That Work](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/salary-negotiation-tactics-that-work-2026) - [How to Prepare for a Job Interview](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/how-to-prepare-for-job-interview) ## People Also Asked ### Q: What is the average salary of a press secretary? A: There is no BLS figure specific to press secretaries, so the most defensible benchmark is the [$74,750 median annual wage for public relations specialists](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/media-and-communication/public-relations-specialists.htm), the broader occupational category press secretaries fall under. Actual press secretary pay ranges well below and well above that number depending on employer type, seniority, and geography. ### Q: Do press secretaries make more than regular PR specialists? A: It depends entirely on the employer. A press secretary at a small city government or nonprofit often earns less than the broader PR specialist median, while a press secretary for a large company, a competitive political campaign, or a senior federal role can earn considerably more than a typical PR specialist, because the title carries higher visibility and higher stakes. ### Q: What is the highest paying employer for a press secretary? A: Senior political press secretaries on well-funded campaigns, large corporate communications departments, and senior federal government press secretary roles tend to pay the most, often well above the general public relations specialists median, while local government and small nonprofit press secretary roles tend to pay closer to or below it. Wondering what you should earn as a press secretary? [Metaintro](https://www.metaintro.com) tracks how these roles are posted and paid across the market, so you can benchmark an offer against real listings instead of guesswork. 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