GS-13 step 1 pays $121,785 a year in the Washington-Baltimore-Arlington locality and $106,437 across the Rest of U.S. Same grade, same step, same position description. The $15,348 between them is settled entirely by a zip code, and no negotiation touches it.

Why is there no single number for what a cleared job pays?

Because four different measurements share one name: a GS base rate, a locality-adjusted GS rate, a contractor’s salary and a loaded bill rate. Recruiters on both sides quote whichever flatters the offer.

The federal half is easier to pin down. OPM’s 2026 base table sets GS-13 step 1 at $90,925, and almost nobody is paid it: every GS employee in the 50 states sits in a locality pay area. The 33.94 percent Washington payment lifts that step to $121,785; Rest of U.S., at 17.06 percent, gives $106,437; Huntsville-Decatur, at 21.91 percent, $110,847. Neither lever is reliable: the 2026 raise moved DC GS-13 step 1 by $1,206, exactly 1.00 percent, because the locality percentage did not move at all.

Even the hourly rate hides a basis difference. Federal payroll divides by 2,087 hours; contractor payroll uses 2,080. On $121,785 that is $58.35 an hour federally, $58.55 the contractor way. Note which BLS picked: the annual wages below are “calculated by multiplying the hourly wages by 2,080 hours.”

That blank row matters. Rates in GSA’s Contract-Awarded Labor Category tool are fully burdened ceiling rates, the most a vendor may charge, and GSA says task-order discounts often occur. The employee sees a fraction of either. Our bill rate versus pay rate and wrap rate explainers take that apart. Never subtract a GS salary from a bill rate.

Does the contractor side actually pay more?

Not according to the only survey pricing both sides on one basis. For Information Security Analysts, BLS puts the Federal Executive Branch median at $145,370 against $132,410 in the contractor industry: a federal advantage of $12,960, or 9.8 percent, on straight-time pay alone.

That cuts against what most cleared professionals believe, so five caveats belong up front.

First, the survey never asks whether a job requires a clearance. No clearance field, no cleared-only estimate: every figure here blends cleared and uncleared workers and cannot price the clearance itself. Our piece on what a security clearance is worth covers why that premium resists measurement.

Second, the two sides are not collected the same way. BLS takes “an annual census” of the federal executive branch, so those 280 workers are administrative records, not a sample: precise and thin at once. Much of the federal cyber workforce sits in other occupation codes, or in excepted-service agencies the survey does not separately identify. The contractor side is a sample of 43,440 from state unemployment files.

Third, that federal median spans every grade and pay plan in the branch, junior analysts through senior executives. It is not a GS-13 rate: setting $145,370 beside $121,785 compares a cross-grade median against a single step.

Fourth, NAICS 541500 is not “defense contractors”. Computer Systems Design and Related Services also holds commercial IT consultancies with no government work at all. It is the closest published proxy, and not a close one.

Fifth, and the one that could reverse the finding: an OEWS wage is not a paycheck total. BLS defines it as “straight-time, gross pay, exclusive of premium pay,” excluding “overtime pay, severance pay, shift differentials, nonproduction bonuses, employer cost for supplementary benefits, and tuition reimbursements.” A contractor’s annual, retention or sign-on bonus is a nonproduction bonus, so it sits outside $132,410. A 10 percent bonus is larger than the 9.8 percent advantage just reported.

One date mismatch runs through all of it: the wage data carries a May 2025 reference period, the GS tables took effect January 2026. Not a same-date snapshot.

What does the federal side pay that never reaches the salary line?

Three things, none on the SF-50, and the wage figures above exclude the contractor equivalent of two. The government funds a retirement account, pays most of a health premium, and funds a defined-benefit pension. A 401(k) match and employer health-premium share are ordinary on the contractor side; only the pension lacks a standard private counterpart.

Under 5 U.S.C. 8432 the employing agency pays an automatic 1 percent of basic pay into the Thrift Savings Plan whether or not you contribute, then matches your first 3 percent dollar for dollar and the next 2 percent at half. At GS-13 step 1 in DC the employer share is $6,089.25 a year, or $1,217.85 if you defer nothing. That slice is not yours yet: under 8432(g)(2) it is forfeited, with its earnings, if you separate before three years of civilian service. Only the match is nonforfeitable when made.

Health benefits are where a widely repeated number misleads. 5 U.S.C. 8906 sets the government contribution at 72 percent of the program-wide weighted average premium, then paragraph (b)(2) caps it at 75 percent of your own plan’s subscription charge. The 2026 maxima are $324.76 biweekly for Self Only, $711.17 for Self Plus One and $778.03 for Self and Family. Quoting those as what you will receive is wrong: pick a cheap plan and you get 75 percent of its charge, which is less. The contribution tracks enrollment tier and plan price only, and does not rise with grade, step or locality.

Stack the maxima and the pension: $121,785 of basic pay, $6,089.25 of TSP, $18,490.42 of Self Plus One health contributions across 26 pay periods and $20,094.53 of FERS normal cost gives roughly $166,459. Our calculation, not a published figure, assuming GS-13 step 1 in DC, a 5 percent deferral, a plan costly enough to earn the maximum contribution, and a 26-period leave year. The pension line is usually called unpriceable. It is not. OPM publishes the employer normal cost in a Benefits Administration Letter, and for a FERS-FRAE regular employee it has been 16.5 percent of basic pay since October 2023, falling to 15.9 percent from October 2026. Two limits. It is the government’s actuarial payment into the retirement fund, not a balance with your name on it, and under 5 U.S.C. 8410 five years of creditable civilian service are required before any annuity is payable, so a three-year tour leaves with none of it. Nor may $166,459 be set against a contractor salary: that is employer cost against wage, the error the bill-rate row warns about.

Money moves the other way too. A first-time federal hire pays into FERS at a rate the statute never states: 10.6 percent for a “further revised annuity employee”, minus the 6.2 percent Social Security rate, leaving 4.4 percent of basic pay, or $5,358.54 a year at GS-13 step 1 in DC, on top of the Social Security and 1.45 percent Medicare a contractor also pays. That 4.4 percent is not universal, and the test is not the one usually quoted. Section 8401(38) requires three things to have been true of you on 31 December 2013, all together: not covered by FERS, not performing creditable civilian service, and under five years of it. Fail any one and 10.6 percent does not reach you. An ex-fed who was FERS-covered that day pays 0.8 percent, or $974.28, however brief the service; someone first covered during 2013 pays 3.1 percent. Many cleared contractors are ex-government, so this is no edge case.

Is there really such a thing as contractor-to-GS conversion?

No. The word is universal in cleared circles; the mechanism does not exist. You apply and compete like any member of the public, and your years on the contract buy no procedural advantage.

The background principle sits in FAR 37.104(a): “The Government is normally required to obtain its employees by direct hire under competitive appointment or other procedures required by the civil service laws.” That gets over-read. It governs whether an agency may award a personal services contract, and binds contracting agencies, not individuals; anyone claiming the FAR bans converting a contractor has misread it. Non-competitive appointment authorities do exist, and none is keyed to contractor history. Veterans recruitment, Schedule A for disability and military spouse authorities attach to veteran status, disability or family circumstance, as our veterans’ preference in contractor jobs and government contract jobs versus federal jobs pieces set out.

Under 5 U.S.C. 3327(b), agencies must notify OPM of competitive-service and SES vacancies only where they seek applications “from persons outside the Federal service.” A large share of GS-13 announcements are merit-promotion actions open to status candidates alone, and that Who May Apply line, not pay, is what a contractor bounces off. And “agency” there means one as defined in 5 U.S.C. 5102(a)(1), which already strikes out by name the CIA, NSA, ODNI, DIA and NGA. It is a closed list, and the FBI is not on it. So a public GS-13 vacancy goes to USAJOBS, an intelligence-community staff role to that agency’s own site, and ClearedJobs.NET is the route to neither. We are a contractor-side board; the government’s channels beat us outright here.

What can you negotiate, and when?

Three levers, all available only before your entry-on-duty date and closing permanently once you start.

The largest is the superior qualifications and special needs authority at 5 CFR 531.212. An agency must set a newly appointed GS employee at step 1 unless it uses this authority, which permits any step up to 10: in DC, $121,785 to $158,322. OPM states it “cannot be made retroactively.” Make the argument that is allowed to work. An agency “may not consider a candidate’s non-federal salary (existing salary or prior salary or a salary from a competing job offer) and should not request” it, so matching your contract rate is not on the table. What it may weigh is “significant disparities between federal and non-federal salaries for the skills and competencies required in the position”, and OPM names BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics as a source. Bring the occupation’s market data, not your pay stub.

Second is a recruitment incentive under 5 CFR part 575, capped at 25 percent of annual basic pay at the start of the service period times the years in it, up to four, or 50 percent with an approved waiver, though the total may never exceed 100 percent of that annual rate. An agency may pay one where the position is hard to fill. Nothing entitles you to it, it requires a signed service agreement with repayment if you separate for cause, and it is not part of basic pay, so it will not raise your GS rate, compound into future steps, or enter your FERS high-3.

Third is the narrowest and most misdescribed. Under 5 U.S.C. 6303(e) an agency head may credit non-federal service toward your annual leave accrual rate, moving a new hire from 4 hours a pay period to 6 or 8. The conditions are tight: the skills must have been acquired in duties that “directly relate” to the position being filled and be “necessary to achieve an important agency mission or performance goal”, and the credit may not exceed the actual service spent on those directly related duties. Years on an unrelated contract buy nothing. OPM states the limit in the negative too: such service “is creditable only for the purpose of determining an employee’s annual leave accrual rate,” though non-federal or uniformed service may still count under other statutes, so a veteran’s active-duty time is a separate question. Ordinary contractor employment is not creditable toward retirement, RIF standing or career tenure. The grant is discretionary, and it is forfeited if you separate or transfer to another agency before a full year with the appointing one.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does my time as a contractor count toward federal retirement?

No. Contractor service is not creditable civilian service under FERS. The one exception, 5 U.S.C. 6303(e), reaches the annual leave accrual rate and nothing else, and even that is discretionary, limited to directly related duties, and must be requested before appointment.

Will I take a pay cut moving from contractor to GS-13?

It depends on the numbers you compare and where you live. A DC GS-13 step 1 at $121,785 sits below the May 2025 median of $148,950 for Information Security Analysts in the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria metro, a smaller footprint than the pay area setting the GS rate, which also covers Baltimore and counties in West Virginia and Pennsylvania that the wage figure never touches. It also spans all employers and experience levels, and excludes bonuses. Count employer TSP, health and pension money on the federal side, and the contractor’s on the other.

Do I have a right to my job if my contract is recompeted?

No federal one. Executive Order 14055 was revoked on 20 January 2025 and the Labor Department rescinded 29 CFR part 9 effective 22 December 2025; the rule never became applicable, because the FAR Council never implemented it. Our right of first refusal explainer traces the history. Any protection comes from the winning contractor’s incumbent-capture practice, not from law.

Does the FAR protect my contractor salary?

Not as usually described. FAR 52.222-46 makes proposed professional compensation an evaluation factor, warning that recompetition “may in some cases result in lowering the compensation.” It binds offerors and contracting officers during source selection, creating no entitlement for you.

The one thing to do before you sign

The decisive window is the same on either side: the days between a verbal offer and your entry-on-duty date. Superior-qualifications pay-setting, a recruitment incentive and non-federal service credit for leave all die the day you start. Ask for all three in writing during the offer conversation, naming the authority for each. All three also run on the employing agency’s own policy, so put the same questions to that agency’s HR and benefits staff before you price the offer. A GS-13 hired at step 5 in DC starts $16,239 ahead of one hired at step 1, and the statutory within-grade waiting periods put five years between them.