School Principal Salary: What the Data Says (2026)

The median annual wage for education administrators at the kindergarten through secondary level, the category that covers school principals, was $105,870 in May 2025, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That figure ranks first among the 14 education careers this site tracks, which makes principal the top-paying role for people who build their careers inside K-12 schools. The BLS lists an equivalent hourly figure of about $50.90, though that number is somewhat artificial for a job that is salaried and does not track hours the way an hourly worker would.

The spread is wide. The lowest-paid 10 percent of principals earned less than $76,280, while the highest-paid 10 percent earned more than $167,770 (BLS, May 2025). That gap of more than $90,000 reflects real differences in geography, district wealth, school size, and experience. A first-year principal in a small rural district sits near the bottom of the range, while a veteran high school principal in a wealthy suburban district can sit near the top. The mean wage of $116,100 runs above the median, a sign that a cluster of very high earners in expensive, well-funded regions pulls the average upward.

One thing that separates principal pay from teacher pay is the calendar. Most teachers work a school-year contract of roughly nine or ten months, but principals are typically employed on 11- or 12-month contracts because schools need administrative coverage through the summer for hiring, scheduling, facilities, and summer programs. That longer contract is part of why the salary is higher, and it also means the summers-off tradeoff that draws people to teaching largely disappears at the principal level. What pushes someone toward the top of the range is a combination of a large secondary school, a high-cost or high-paying state, and many years of proven results.

Where a principal works matters as much as anything else on the pay stub. The highest-paying states are clustered on the coasts and in the Northeast. Washington leads with a median of $166,590, followed by California at $159,950, Connecticut at $156,240, New York at $138,830, the District of Columbia at $137,470, and New Jersey at $137,440 (BLS, May 2025). At the other end, principals earn the least in Louisiana at $83,360, North Carolina at $83,180, Mississippi at $82,800, and West Virginia at $80,650. The gap between the top and bottom states is roughly double.

These numbers come with the usual cost-of-living caveat. A $166,000 salary in Washington or a $160,000 salary in California stretches far less than the raw figure suggests once housing, taxes, and daily expenses are counted, while an $83,000 salary in Mississippi or West Virginia buys a good deal more house and a lower tax bill. The high-paying states also tend to fund their schools through higher local property taxes and stronger administrator pay scales, so the geography of pay closely tracks the geography of school funding and living costs.

Principal pay rises with time in the role, and the percentile bands from the BLS map roughly onto a career arc. A newly appointed principal, often someone who just moved up from assistant principal, tends to earn near the lower end of the range, closer to the $76,280 that marks the bottom 10 percent. By mid-career, after several years of running a building and posting steady results, a principal generally earns near the $105,870 median. Veterans with a long track record, especially those leading large secondary schools in well-funded districts, are the ones who reach the $167,770 that marks the top 10 percent (BLS, May 2025).

Because principals are public employees in most districts, their pay usually follows an administrator salary schedule negotiated at the district level. These schedules reward years of service and, in many places, additional credentials such as a doctorate. Unlike the classic teacher step-and-lane grid, administrator schedules are often more individually negotiated, and moving to a larger school or a district with a richer scale can produce a bigger jump than another year of experience in the same seat. The fastest raises usually come from changing buildings or districts rather than waiting for the next annual step.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that employment of kindergarten through secondary education administrators will decline about 2 percent from 2024 to 2034, a slower-than-average outlook that reflects flat or falling K-12 enrollment in much of the country. School districts add principal positions when they open new schools, and with student populations stable or shrinking in many regions, few new buildings are coming online. The number of principal jobs is essentially fixed by the number of schools, which does not grow quickly.

Even with a small projected decline in the total number of positions, the BLS estimates about 20,800 openings for these administrators each year over the decade. Almost all of those openings come from turnover rather than growth: principals retire, move up to district offices, return to the classroom, or leave the field because of burnout. The principalship has high churn, and many districts struggle to fill vacancies, especially in high-poverty schools and rural areas where the job is hardest and the pay is lowest.

The practical takeaway is that the path into the role runs through replacing people who leave, not through expansion. A qualified assistant principal or teacher-leader with the right license will find openings, particularly in hard-to-staff schools, but should not expect a fast-growing field. Willingness to lead a challenging school or to relocate to a high-need area is often the difference between waiting for a rare opening and getting hired quickly.