Is it possible to get a raise by retraining as pentester? Are you being treated unfairly by your boss after three years as a security engineer?
We have a great survey that will help you benchmark your salary or give you some insight into the real salaries of infosec professionals.
This is the second edition of the survey by the author. This is a snapshot of informationsec pay. This information should prove to be helpful for both hiring managers and job seekers. This information is also useful for those who are interested in information security as a career.
The anonymous survey asks for salary details and job roles. Participants are also asked to provide useful ancillary information such as years of experience, education level, and work style (onsite/remote). This survey provides us with valuable information about current trends in infosec work.
Let's take a closer look at some of these trends...
Informationsec professionals earn
We can see the USD declared earnings clearly.
The average salary is $158,213
The lowest possible salary is $9,500
The highest salary is $800,000.
Argentina has the lowest average salary.
The highest-earning person declared themselves to be "Red Team," Bug Bounty Hunting and Security Engineer, and lives in Richmond, VA, USA.
Penetration tester was the most popular job title.
Security is important to organizations.
A company can choose to hire salaried workers, or rely on outsourced security providers or drafted-in contract workers when it needs infosec skills. Consultants
Survey respondents are more likely to be employees than consultants. This makes sense from an employer's point of view. This is in contrast to other tech tasks, such as software implementation or systems architecture. Security is not a one-off task like systems architecture and software implementation. It is a smart decision to invest in your own internal team.
Cybersecurity is a great area to focus on if you are looking for a career in tech and want stability in a job. There are also opportunities for those who prefer to work alone. We've noticed that many survey respondents who are consultants describe their job as a 'penetration tester'. This might be the job for you if you enjoy the idea of looking at different organizations from a new perspective and looking for weaknesses.
It is common to make career changes
What were respondents doing before moving into cybersecurity? These results indicate that cybersecurity is a very popular career path. Many people have worked for a while in other IT and development roles before switching to infosec.
Let's suppose you're currently working in systems administration and feel stuck. You are likely already proficient in IT basics. You're likely to be well versed in IT operations day-to-day, as well as in business procedures and processes.
So far, so good. How do you make the switch to cybersecurity?
It's about filling those knowledge gaps. On-demand online learning of Cybersecurity Course offers the advantage of being able to complete it at your own pace and without incurring student debt. These gaps can be filled with no excuse. This survey shows that many others have made the leap as well.
