Salary calculator
What should a security role pay you?
Choose the specialty and your seniority to see the base salary band that open postings state for it. Add an offer or what you earn now, and see where it lands against that band and its median.
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Open security engineering postings put a mid-level hire at about
Built from 305 distinct salary figures on open security engineering postings from 113 employers, 2026-11-11. Postings state base salary; bonus, equity and on-call pay come on top where an employer offers them, and the figure a given employer pays depends on location and scope.
Open the 617 security engineering postingsMid-level salaries across security specialties
The band each specialty's open postings state at this seniority. A specialty's name explains the work; its band opens those postings by pay.
Bands are typical pay (from the 25th percentile of the midpoints of posted ranges (each counted as yearly pay, a rate per hour at 2,080 hours) to the 90th percentile of their top ends), taken from live postings where enough of them state a range and from the board's first recorded band otherwise. A posting that gives only a ceiling (“up to $X”) is left out, since a ceiling is not a salary anyone is paid.
Where these bands come from
Each specialty’s band starts from the salary ranges its open postings state. Typical pay runs from the 25th percentile of the midpoints of posted ranges (each counted as yearly pay, a rate per hour at 2,080 hours) to the 90th percentile of their top ends, with the median between them: the same measure the board shows on every list of postings. An early-career hire is placed in the lower half (the low end to the median), a mid-level one across the whole band, and a senior, staff or lead one in the upper half (the median to the high end). Nothing is projected past the figures the postings themselves give.
Two things are kept out because they would bend the band: postings that give only a ceiling (“up to $X”), since a ceiling is not a salary anyone is paid, and postings with no figure at all. Where too few postings in a specialty state a salary, the calculator falls back to the band the board recorded for it at its first read and says so. Every figure is yearly pay in US dollars; where a posting quotes a rate per hour, week or month, it is multiplied by 2,080, 52 or 12 to make a full-time year (40 hours over 52 weeks). Read the methodology or the salary tables for the detail.
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Security salary questions
What is a typical cybersecurity salary right now?
Across the open security postings that state a range, typical base pay is $167k–$345k/yr. That spans every specialty and seniority together, so pick yours in the calculator above for a narrower band. These are base salaries; bonus, equity and on-call pay are extra where offered.
Which security specialty pays the most?
On today's postings, Security Leadership has the highest median at $229k/yr, and Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC) the lowest at $176k/yr. Those two medians are $53k apart, while typical pay inside a single specialty spans at least $114k, so seniority and scope move pay more than the choice of specialty does.
How do I know whether a security job offer is fair?
Type the offer's base salary into the calculator with the matching specialty and seniority. A figure under the band is worth a conversation: ask for the role's posted range, which many US states now require, and what separates the bottom of it from the middle. Compare base with base, and value bonus and equity separately.
Why does the calculator use yearly figures for contract roles too?
Almost every security posting states a yearly base range, so the board keeps every figure on that one scale. Every figure is yearly pay in US dollars; where a posting quotes a rate per hour, week or month, it is multiplied by 2,080, 52 or 12 to make a full-time year (40 hours over 52 weeks). A contract rate converted this way is a full-time equivalent, before the benefits an employee would get.