Department of Defense
Headcount, average pay, length of service, sub-agencies, and hiring trends for Department of Defense, drawn directly from the OPM Federal Workforce Data (June 2026).
OPM FedScope stock folio
Employment stock June 2026 Department of Defense
Department of Defense is a major federal employer: 70,493 employees (3.6% of the federal civilian workforce) across 0 states (including DC). At an average salary of n/a it pays below the federal average of $117,339, and headcount declined 51.3% from the prior period.
Monthly FedScope employment stock for Department of Defense - headcount, pay, tenure, and nearest peer names from the same OPM extract (70,493 employees · n/a avg).
- HEAD 70,493
- RANK #10/126
- PAY n/a
- LOS 12.5 yrs
- SHARE 3.6%
- STATES n/a
- NET -11,087
- SUBS 7
- PHOTO Department of Health and Hum
- BOOK OPM FWD
Headcount peers
Photo peer: Department of Health and Human Services (72,919 employees)
According to OPM FedScope June 2026, Department of Defense ranks #10 of 126 federal agencies by headcount (the same employee_count ordering as our agencies directory and /rankings/largest-agencies). Peer bars use similar workforce size, not duty-station geography. Corpus placement →
Department of Defense pay book (lean avg)
Lean-pay strip (70,493 employees · n/a avg) vs federal average $117,339.
Agency Average
n/a
Federal Average
$117,339
vs. Federal Avg
-100.0%
Where Department of Defense ranks on pay
Ranked by agency (not weighted by headcount), its average salary of n/a is higher than 0% of the 121 federal agencies (0 pay less on average). Smaller specialized agencies often post higher per-employee averages than large ones like Department of Defense, so this agency-count rank can differ from a comparison to the government-wide, employee-weighted average shown above. The highlighted bar marks where Department of Defense sits in the federal pay distribution.
Average-salary distribution across all 121 federal agencies; Department of Defense ranks higher than 0%.
Sub-agency pay span (dense agency)
Under $80K
70,493
$80K–$100K
0
$100K–$120K
0
$120K–$150K
0
Over $150K
0
Sub-agencies & Organizational Units
Department of Defense has 7 sub-agencies. The highest-paying unit averages n/a.
| Sub-agency | Employees | Avg Salary | Avg LOS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Military Treatment Facilities Under Dha | 41,014 | n/a | 12.8 yrs |
| Defense Commissary Agency | 10,184 | n/a | 12.1 yrs |
| Department of War Education Activity | 9,424 | n/a | 8.8 yrs |
| Defense Health Agency | 5,584 | n/a | 15.7 yrs |
| Office of the Secretary of Defense | 2,512 | n/a | 14.5 yrs |
| Defense Security Cooperation Agency | 1,117 | n/a | 14.3 yrs |
| Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences | 658 | n/a | 15.9 yrs |
Workforce Dynamics
Dynamics feed (RSS)Monthly hiring and separation trends. Net change over 12 months: -11,087.
| Month | Accessions | Separations | Net |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 2026 | +747 | -1,368 | -621 |
| May 2026 | +1,569 | -1,378 | +191 |
| Apr 2026 | +1,053 | -899 | +154 |
| Mar 2026 | +1,448 | -1,407 | +41 |
| Feb 2026 | +1,260 | -1,410 | -150 |
| Jan 2026 | +1,590 | -3,518 | -1,928 |
| Dec 2025 | +1,118 | -1,656 | -538 |
| Nov 2025 | +811 | -1,309 | -498 |
| Oct 2025 | +588 | -924 | -336 |
| Sep 2025 | +1,311 | -7,198 | -5,887 |
| Aug 2025 | +1,184 | -1,237 | -53 |
| Jul 2025 | +465 | -1,927 | -1,462 |
vs Federal Hiring Climate
OPM FedScope dynamics for Jun 2026 — Department of Defense against the same-month federal civilian totals (not a forecast).
Agency net (Jun 2026)
-621
+747 / −1,368
Federal net (Jun 2026)
+311
+16,610 / −16,299
Share of federal accessions
4.50%
Moved against the federal climate this month
Hiring & Separation Reasons
Why employees join and leave Department of Defense, Jul 2025–Jun 2026
Accession Reasons
NEW HIRE - COMPETITIVE SERVICE APPOINTMENT
7,767
NEW HIRE - EXCEPTED SERVICE APPOINTMENT
4,561
TRANSFER IN - INDIVIDUAL TRANSFER
742
NEW HIRE - SENIOR EXECUTIVE SERVICE (SES) APPT
37
TRANSFER IN - MASS TRANSFER
37
Separation Reasons
QUIT
9,748
RETIREMENT - VOLUNTARY
7,613
TERMINATION (EXPIRED APPT/OTHER)
3,307
TRANSFER OUT - INDIVIDUAL TRANSFER
1,396
RETIREMENT - EARLY OUT
1,082
Sub-agencies by average tenure
Agency-wide average length of service is 12.5 years. Counts below are employees in sub-agencies whose average tenure falls in each band, not how many individuals have that length of service.
Sub-agency avg under 5 yrs
0
Sub-agency avg 5–10 yrs
9,424
Sub-agency avg 10–15 yrs
54,827
Sub-agency avg 15–20 yrs
6,242
Sub-agency avg over 20 yrs
0
Similar-Sized Agencies
Federal agencies with a similar workforce size to Department of Defense
Showing 6 of 125 other federal agencies.
Department of Health and Human Services
Department of Agriculture
Department of Interior
Department of Treasury
Department of Transportation
Social Security Administration
Nationwide agencies with similar pay or tenure
Two peer sets for Department of Defense on OPM FedScope averages that vary across the full agency corpus, not duty-station geography or sub-agency hierarchy.
Peers near this lean pay band
Nearest agency-wide average salaries (n/a here).
Peers near this dense headcount tenure
Nearest agency-wide average length of service (12.5 years here).
How these figures are calculated
The pay percentile above is computed live from PlainGovJobs' own OPM FedScope database, not hand-typed: Department of Defense's average salary is ranked against every other federal agency's average salary, agency-by-agency (not weighted by headcount), and the percentile is the share of agencies whose average is strictly lower.
The sub-agency pay-span bars sum each sub-agency's own employee_count into one of five salary bands based on that sub-agency's average salary; the bands add up exactly to Department of Defense's total employee count, since every sub-agency is counted in exactly one band.
See the methodology page for the full source-to-page pipeline and refresh cadence.
Data Source: U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) FedScope Employment Cubes, June 2026. Federal civilian non-seasonal full-time and part-time employees. Data does not include military personnel, postal workers, or intelligence agency staff. Last updated: 2026-08-11.
Data currency: Employment stock from OPM Federal Workforce Data June 2026 (prior-period deltas vs May 2026); monthly hiring/separations from FWD Dynamics June 2024–June 2026 (filled civilian headcount and flows, not live USAJOBS vacancy listings). State pages sum only duty stations with a disclosed US state/DC code; 898,675 employees have redacted geography in the release and appear in the national total only. Database compiled 2026-08-11. See our methodology § populations for the three windows. Spot a figure that looks wrong? Report a correction.