How Much Does A Cyber Security Specialist Make? – A well-known fact is that IT professionals make significantly more money than their non-IT counterparts. According to the CompTIA Cyberstates reference to the tech economy, the median wage in the IT industry is twice as high as the total average wage in the United States. The IT industry, including cybersecurity, is no exception to this rule. To what extent do cybersecurity professionals get paid?
The term “cybersecurity” covers various responsibilities in the technology sector. Pentesters, information security analysts, security engineers, and chief information security officers all have different salary ranges. Many factors affect your profits, including your level of education and experience.
Aside from Glassdoor, a well-known site for comparing businesses and employers, Payscale, a start-up that assists employers in managing employee compensation.
Factors Affecting Pay
Education and experience are both important
The salary a cybersecurity professional may expect to earn is heavily influenced by their level of education.
They deal with data loss prevention and protection in general, security incidents and risk assessment, and fighting against digital attacks, which are all tasks that a cybersecurity professional performs. Employers prefer a bachelor’s degree in computer security or a related field to ensure their experts know what they’re doing. Examples of related fields include computer science, data administration, network administration, and more.
An undergraduate degree may be required for entry-level work in IT security, but a postgraduate degree is not. Moreover, two-thirds of tech professionals with a master’s degree or more said their advanced degrees didn’t help them make more money.
In contrast, even if you are beginning your career in cybersecurity, it is always advantageous to have experience. If you’ve never worked before, your starting salary will be smaller. Improve your skills and knowledge, and your superiors are more likely to award you a pay increase in the future! (Both theoretical and practical).
Junior and senior positions in the IT industry are often labelled as such based on their experience level. Even though their job descriptions are the same, senior security analysts make more money than rookie security analysts.
A business models
A person can work in IT in many industries, despite this article’s focus on the technology sector. Regardless of the nature of a company’s operation, computer security is necessary.
As a result of the high average wages paid to IT experts and cybersecurity specialists by these sectors (aerospace and defence; communications; public relations; advertising; pharmaceuticals; medical; biotech; government (military and homeland security)); system and VAR integration).
Size and revenue of the company
The size and profitability of the business impact average wage calculations as well as other factors. It would be fantastic, in principle, to find a position in a very small company with a large income (less than 100 or, even better, less than 50 employees) that generates substantial income. Without a doubt, your cybersecurity remuneration would be more than the average for the industry.
Even if a small business is extremely successful, it will never be able to create the same amount of profit as a major corporation.
The starting compensation for a cybersecurity professional at businesses such as Google, Cisco, Amazon, and others is not particularly competitive. It is the nature of giant organizations that they employ hundreds of thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people worldwide that causes the problem. As a result, they are more likely than their smaller rivals to offer lower starting salaries.
Once you have gained sufficient experience and advanced to a senior position inside one of these conglomerates, your annual remuneration will be higher than other organizations. Not to mention that some of them, such as Google, provide its employees with shares in the company, which they can sell at any moment if they like.
The company’s physical location.
The information technology industry offers a significant advantage in this age of working from home and social isolation. A good internet connection is not required for most computer workers to work from home, and they can do so with little difficulty. Remote information technology labor is slowly but steadily becoming the standard in the information technology business.
Where you work as an employee is unimportant, but the size of your compensation will be affected by where your company is located if you are an employee. It is not the same to work in technology in Washington, DC, in a similar position in San Francisco, CA. Because Silicon Valley is often regarded as the global epicenter of technology, average tech incomes in the San Francisco region are among the highest in the world.
As of 2019, a tech worker in San Francisco earned $145k a year on average. The same person earned $138k in Seattle, WA, $133k and $117k in Denver, CO and ‘just’ $113k in San Diego, CA.
Salary Ranges for Information Technology Security Professionals
Finally, the salary you will receive will be determined by the cybersecurity position you hold in your company. To assist you in understanding how much a cyber security expert, as well as other cyber security positions, would earn, the following are the median cybersecurity salary for some of the most frequent job titles:
Computer Forensics Analyst is a job title.
However, even though this job appears to be engaging and offers the prospect of working in a dynamic atmosphere, it is one of the lowest-paying positions on our list. According to Glassdoor, a computer forensics analyst earns an average of $57,755 per year, while according to PayScale, they earn an average of $73,892 per year.
Cyber Security Specialist
The position of cybersecurity specialist is considered to be entry-level in the profession. Depending on where you work, it is also known as a computer security professional or an information security specialist. On average, annual salaries for this profession in the United States range from $69,123 to $76,336 per year.
Information Security Analyst
According to industry statistics, information security analysts often earn more money than cybersecurity specialists. According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, an information security analyst earns an average salary of $99,730 per year or $47.95 per hour on average. Information security analysts earn an average annual salary of $76,410.
According to the Penetration Tester (Pentester) Payscale, an entry-level penetration tester’s remuneration ranges from $52k to $137k, according to the Penetration Tester (Pentester) Payscale. This is consistent with the findings of Glassdoor, which indicate that the average pentester earns $69,123 per year.
Security Engineer
According to Glassdoor, cybersecurity and data security engineers earn an average annual salary of $99,834. These results are consistent with those published on Payscale, where the average yearly salary for a security engineer is 91,598 dollars.
It would help if you kept in mind that a network security engineer’s annual salary is smaller than those of the other positions listed above – on average, $79,686.
Security Architect
Security architects receive six-figure salaries due to their highly specialized expertise and wide range of duties. According to Glassdoor, the average base salary for a security architect is $106,362, and the average base salary for a security architect is $124,051, respectively.
Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)
The typical starting salary for a chief information security officer is $179,763, commensurate with the position’s executive status.
Conclusion
In terms of salary, what does a cyber security professional make? Answering this question is proving to be a challenge. Several factors go into determining the normal pay for this challenging profession. An employee’s level of education and years of experience are directly correlated. If you want to work for a large, well-known company, be aware that your first salary will be low.
Your decision should consider that not all parts of the United States have the same average income. It would help if you also considered the cost of living in different sections of the country.)