Salaries for cybersecurity professionals have risen by 6% in one year, double the national average of 2.9%, according to Acumin Consulting’s latest annual Salary Survey.
The firm analyzed 56 key cybersecurity positions across its database of end users, system integrators, consultancies and public sector divisions to provide a holistic view of salaries across organization type and role seniority.
Acumin’s findings revealed that education and compliance roles saw the biggest increases (20%) in the last year, with security analysts also benefiting from an average salary rise of 13%. Those in the role of information security officer saw the lowest increase (1.5%), whilst application security specialists and product directors saw their wages up by two percent.
“Our 2018 Salary Survey provides a snapshot of the issues that have been driving boardroom agendas this year, namely data protection regulation and user education,” said Simon Hember, group business development director at Acumin. “With the pressures brought down on organizations by the GDPR, professionals with skills in compliance and process are commanding record salaries.”
However, it appears the public sector is failing to meet the salaries being offered by private sector organizations.
“Opportunities for security professionals in the public sector should be booming, especially given the government’s commitment to the National Cyber Security Strategy and GCHQ’s recent drive to recruit 2000 roles to deal with the threat of nation state actors,” Hember added. “However, it’s no surprise that the public sector is struggling to offer the salaries, and attractive packages that can be offered by private sector organizations or indeed well-funded security start-ups.”