Demand continues to rise for cybersecurity professionals throughout the US, and the salaries seem to follow suit. New data shows best cities for salary and cost of living.

Sean Martin, CISSP | President, imsmartin

August 16, 2016

16 Slides

Like a broken record, we continue to hear that the demand for cybersecurity professionals continues to rise, and it seems to be getting harder to fill these roles. Supporting this position is a recent survey from Black Hat USA that found “nearly 75% of security professionals say they do not have enough staff to defend their organizations against current threats.” The gap is expected to widen in the coming years, reaching 53% by 2018, according to a 2015 analysis from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

So:

  • Where are these jobs?

  • When taking the cost of living into account, which cities offer the best salaries?

  • As a cybersecurity professional, where can your all-important skills get the most buck for your bang?

As one of the world's largest job search sites, Austin-based Indeed helped answer some of these questions by mining cybersecurity salary data to uncover the top-paying cities in the US. You might be surprised to find a city or two missing from the list. You might be equally surprised to see which city tops the list.

In addition to the cost-of-living-adjusted salary results provided by Indeed, you’ll also find some supporting facts and figures to help round out the viability of each city as a potential market for job seekers. These include a sampling of job numbers and the top five employers offering information security roles in each of the top 15 cities.

An interesting footnote: The five cities that round out the bottom of Indeed’s salary study may not pay as high as the top 10 cities on their list, but four of these five do score a coveted spot on Indeed’s “Top 10 US Cities for Job Satisfaction” list.

Note: The job search results by Indeed are as of August 14, 2016 and were based on the keyphrase <information security> while searching within 25 miles of the selected city.

 

About the Author(s)

Sean Martin

CISSP | President, imsmartin

Sean Martin is an information security veteran of nearly 25 years and a four-term CISSP with articles published globally covering security management, cloud computing, enterprise mobility, governance, risk, and compliance—with a focus on specialized industries such as government, finance, healthcare, insurance, legal, and the supply chain

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