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The Security Leadership Job Market

On 14 Nov 2026, 316 security roles in Security Leadership were open at 192 employers, Palo Alto Networks listing 10 of them (3.2%); their median advertised pay was $246k/yr, 23% above the $200k/yr of all security roles.

Data window
11 Nov 2026 to 14 Nov 2026
4 days, UTC
Computed
15 Nov 2026, 16:07 UTC
Recomputed every day
Source
The public job boards of the employers this site tracks (Greenhouse, Ashby, Lever, Workday, SmartRecruiters and the other systems they post on), read every hour, keeping the postings whose title and description read as security work. Apply clicks are made on CyberJobs.cc; full descriptions come from the employers whose boards publish them.
Method
Version 6. Definitions
CC BY 4.0, how to cite

Every figure on this page as CSV and JSON, sent to your work email.

Key findings

  1. 1

    192 employers listed the 316 open roles in Security Leadership; Palo Alto Networks held 10 of them (3.2%) and the three largest 25 (7.9%).

    Figure 1
  2. 2

    142 of the 316 open roles in Security Leadership (44.9%) stated pay, with a median of $246k/yr (typical pay $211k to $400k a year), 23% above the $200k/yr of all security roles.

    Figure 2
  3. 3

    9 of the 316 open roles in Security Leadership (2.8%) accepted applicants from any country, against 3.1% of all open security roles; of the 20 countries compared, residents of the United States (177), then Canada and Israel (36 each) could apply to the most, and residents of Mexico to the fewest (14).

    Figure 5
  4. 4

    The words used most in the titles of open roles in Security Leadership were Manager (146), Director, head or VP (96) and Engineer or developer (85), of 316 open roles.

    Figure 6
  5. 5

    Of the 314 open roles in Security Leadership with a full description, 87 (27.7%) mention a degree, 17 (5.4%) mention a security clearance and 171 (54.5%) state years of experience, a median of 7 years.

    Figure 7
  6. 6

    99 of the 314 described roles in Security Leadership (31.5%) name a security certification; CISSP (85), CISM (65) and GIAC certifications (GSEC, GCIH, GPEN and others, 38) were named most.

    Figure 8
  7. 7

    Among the 11 employers with at least 3 distinct advertised salaries in Security Leadership, OpenAI advertised the highest median ($456k/yr) and CrowdStrike the lowest ($178k/yr).

    Figure 1

Figure 1

Who hires for it

Which employers list security roles in Security Leadership, and what does each advertise?

EmployerOpen rolesShare of open rolesMedian pay a year
Palo Alto Networks10$247,000
Coupang8n/a
JustMarkets7n/a
Anthropic6$430,000
Arctic Wolf6n/a
CrowdStrike6$178,000
Nebius6n/a
Workstreet6n/a
Okta5n/a
Canonical4n/a
CoreWeave4$241,000
DoorDash4$239,000
Serval4$263,000
Sophos4n/a
WHOOP4$214,000
AHEAD3n/a
Anduril Industries3$317,000
Capco3n/a
Check Point3n/a
Databricks3$233,000
JFrog3n/a
OpenAI3$456,000
Roblox3$320,000
SentinelOne3n/a
1Password2n/a
3Cloud2n/a
Abnormal Security2n/a
Acronis2n/a
Addepar2n/a
Advens2n/a
Affirm2n/a
Bitsight2n/a
CyberOne2n/a
Delinea2n/a
Forus2n/a
Geotab2n/a
Gong2n/a
Harvey2n/a
Horizon3.ai2n/a
Huntress2n/a
Instacart2n/a
Insurity2n/a
Intuition Machines2n/a
Job&Talent2n/a
Keenfinity2n/a
nesto2n/a
Nubank2n/a
OPSWAT2n/a
Pure Storage2n/a
Qualtrics2n/a

The other 142 rows, in the same order (every value of every row is in the report's data, sent by email):

Reflection AI, Saviynt, SOFTSWISS, Software Secured, SpaceX, Thales, Thoropass, Trend Micro, Two Six Technologies, Veeam, Zipline, Abusix, Accelerant, Adyen, Aidoc, Allium, Altruist, Apex, Applied Intuition, Arista Networks, Armadin, Artemis, Axonius, Backblaze, Bitdefender, BJAK, Bondora, Brain Co., Bugcrowd, CampusWorks, Canva, Cape, Carrot, Cato Networks, Celonis, Charlie Health, CLEAR, ClickUp, Coinbase, Consensys, Crusoe, Cyberhaven, Datadog, DigitalOcean, Discord, Ebury, EDB, Elastic, emerchantpay, Empirical, Engine, ePlus, ESO, Ethos, European Dynamics, Eye Security, FAR.AI, Fastly, Figma, FINN, Fivetran, Foley, Foundant, Frontline Wildfire Defense, Fullscript, Gainsight, Gemini, Gen Digital, GitLab, Glean, Glia, GuidePoint Security, Hadrian, Harness, Helius, Humanoid, Instructure, IONOS, IonQ, Irth Solutions, Ivalua, KOHO, LaunchDarkly, Legora, LemFi, Long View Systems, MongoDB, Monzo, Morpho, Motive, Myriad360, N-iX, Netskope, Nozomi Networks, Nscale, Obsidian Security, Ontinue, Opal Security, Orcrist Technologies, Perplexity, Playlab, Praetorian, Prompt Health, Prowler, Qualys, Rain, Render, Riveron, Rubrik, Safe Software, SafePaaS, Secfix, Second Front, Semgrep, SentiLink, Shopware, SkySlope, Sonar, SonicWall, Spark Power, Stand Together, Starling Bank, Stedi, Super.com, Sword Group, Sysdig, Talan, Tekion, Tevora, The New York Times, Tonic.ai, Trace3, Trail of Bits, TRM Labs, Turing, UpGuard, Valkai, Virta Health, Wavenet, Zeta Global, Zippy, Zscaler

Sample. 316 roles in Security Leadership open at the end of 14 Nov 2026, by the employer that lists them: HHI 88 (unconcentrated), against 60 for all security roles.

HHI: the sum of every employer's squared percentage share of the open roles, 0 to 10,000; under 1,500 is unconcentrated, 1,500 to 2,500 moderately and above 2,500 highly concentrated (US merger-guideline thresholds).

Shares are of listings, not of people hired: an employer posting one role for each city or country it hires in weighs more here than its hiring may.

A median needs at least 3 distinct advertised salaries.

Source. CyberJobs.cc Research, The Security Leadership Job Market, live data.

Figure 2

What it pays

What do security roles in Security Leadership advertise a year, against every security role on the board?

RolesMedian pay a yearTypical pay fromTypical pay toStating pay
Security Leadership$211,000$400,00044.9%
All security roles$160,000$332,00040.7%

Sample. Roles open on 14 Nov 2026: 316 in Security Leadership, 142 of them stating pay; 3,041 across all security roles.

Pay is the year's pay a posting advertises (the middle of a stated range; an hourly rate counts as 2,080 hours), counted once per distinct salary as the job board counts it. The median and typical pay are the board's: typical pay is the span from the 25th percentile of range midpoints to the 90th percentile of range tops, every figure taken as a full-time year (an hourly rate times 2,080 hours), stated from 3 distinct salaries.

A role whose posting gives no salary or pay range counts as not stating pay.

Source. CyberJobs.cc Research, The Security Leadership Job Market, live data.

Figure 3

How its pay is spread

How is the advertised pay of security roles in Security Leadership spread across salary bands?

Advertised pay a yearOpen rolesShare of roles stating payAll security roles
Under $75k a year0
0.0%
2.3%
$75k to $100k0
0.0%
2.2%
$100k to $125k1
0.7%
4.4%
$125k to $150k7
4.9%
10.4%
$150k to $175k9
6.3%
14.0%
$175k to $200k14
9.9%
16.3%
$200k to $250k43
30.3%
28.9%
$250k to $300k36
25.4%
13.0%
$300k a year or more32
22.5%
8.5%

Sample. 142 roles in Security Leadership open on 14 Nov 2026 that state pay, against 1,237 across all security roles.

Each role counts once, at the middle of its advertised range, on the board's one scale (a year's pay; an hourly rate counts as a full-time year). The bands are those of the salary-transparency report.

Source. CyberJobs.cc Research, The Security Leadership Job Market, live data.

Figure 4

Who may apply: location rules

Can people apply to security roles in Security Leadership from anywhere, or are they based in some countries?

Sample. 316 roles in Security Leadership open at the end of 14 Nov 2026, against 3,041 across all security roles.

The rule is read from each posting's location text, then, where that names no country, from what the posting's own description states, and where both are silent from what the employer states about where it hires.

Most security roles are based in one country, on site, hybrid or remote within it, and count as limited to that country; a role open to applicants anywhere is remote from any country.

Source. CyberJobs.cc Research, The Security Leadership Job Market, live data.

Figure 5

Who may apply: roles open to each country

How many roles in Security Leadership can a resident of each country apply to?

CountryOpen rolesShare of its open roles
Any country (roles open to applicants anywhere)2.8%
United States56.0%
Canada11.4%
Israel11.4%
United Kingdom9.8%
Poland9.5%
Spain8.9%
France8.9%
India8.5%
Germany8.2%
Ireland8.2%
Portugal7.9%
Czechia7.6%
Greece7.6%
Netherlands7.6%
Romania7.6%
Italy7.3%
Sweden7.3%
Belgium7.0%
Slovakia7.0%
Mexico4.4%

Sample. 316 roles in Security Leadership open at the end of 14 Nov 2026, for residents of a fixed set of 20 countries.

A country's count is the roles open to applicants anywhere (including roles that state no rule, as on the job board), plus roles whose list names it, plus roles whose exclusion list does not.

The 20 countries are the same in every report of this series: those named most often by the location rules of open security roles on 14 Nov 2026, as the countries a role is based in or limited to or as excluded.

Median pay is over the roles open to that country that state pay (at least 3 distinct advertised salaries).

Source. CyberJobs.cc Research, The Security Leadership Job Market, live data.

Figure 6

What the roles are called

Which words do the titles of security roles in Security Leadership use most?

Title wordOpen rolesShare of its open roles
Manager
146
46.2%
Director, head or VP
96
30.4%
Engineer or developer
85
26.9%
Lead
39
12.3%
CISO or chief security officer
19
6.0%
Officer
12
3.8%
Analyst
3
0.9%
Architect
3
0.9%
Penetration tester or red teamer
3
0.9%
Consultant or advisor
1
0.3%
Researcher
1
0.3%
Specialist
1
0.3%

Sample. 311 of the 316 roles in Security Leadership open on 14 Nov 2026 use one of these words in their title (98.4%); 12 title words are used.

A title can use several of these words and counts for each. The vocabulary is the job-titles report's.

Median pay needs at least 3 distinct advertised salaries.

Source. CyberJobs.cc Research, The Security Leadership Job Market, live data.

Figure 7

What the descriptions ask for

Do security roles in Security Leadership ask for a degree, a certification, a clearance, years of experience or a test?

RequirementRolesShare of described roles
Mentions a PhD7
2.2%
Mentions a PhD or master's34
10.8%
Mentions any degree87
27.7%
Names a security certification99
31.5%
Mentions a security clearance17
5.4%
States years of experience171
54.5%
Asks for 5 years or more148
47.1%
States weekly hours4
1.3%
Mentions a technical assessment or test9
2.9%
Mentions a background check26
8.3%

Sample. 314 roles in Security Leadership open on 14 Nov 2026 whose job board publishes a full description (at 191 employers), 99.4% of its open roles; 3,037 described roles across all security roles.

A mention can be a requirement or a preference ('a CISSP is a plus'): the figure counts both. The patterns are those of the requirements report, and a certification is one of the one list the certification pages count.

Only roles whose job board publishes a full description are read, so this figure describes those roles.

A specialty's figure is shown when its described roles outweigh the average of the specialties (93.3 described roles: the weight of every specialty's shares around the shares of all described roles, fitted on their own counts).

Source. CyberJobs.cc Research, The Security Leadership Job Market, live data.

Figure 8

Certifications the postings name

Which security certifications do the postings for roles in Security Leadership name?

CertificationRoles naming itShare of described roles
CISSP
85
27.1%
CISM
65
20.7%
GIAC certifications (GSEC, GCIH, GPEN and others)
38
12.1%
CISA (Certified Information Systems Auditor)
21
6.7%
CCSP
14
4.5%
OSCP
14
4.5%
CRISC
13
4.1%
AWS certifications
7
2.2%
ISO 27001 Lead Auditor or Lead Implementer
7
2.2%
OffSec advanced (OSEP, OSWE, OSED, OSCE3)
7
2.2%
CompTIA Security+
5
1.6%
CIPP (privacy)
4
1.3%
Microsoft security certifications (AZ-500, SC-200, SC-100, SC-300)
3
1.0%
Cisco CCNA or CCNP
2
0.6%
CompTIA CySA+
2
0.6%
Google Cloud Professional Cloud Security Engineer
2
0.6%
CCSK
1
0.3%
CEH (Certified Ethical Hacker)
1
0.3%
CKS (Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist)
1
0.3%
CRTO
1
0.3%
PCI QSA or ISA
1
0.3%

Sample. 99 of the 314 roles in Security Leadership open on 14 Nov 2026 with a full description name at least one security certification (31.5%); 21 certifications are named.

A certification counts where the description names it, required or preferred alike, by the rules of the certification pages (lib/certifications.ts): CISA, also a US government agency, counts only beside another certification's name. A description naming several counts for each.

A specialty's figure is shown when its described roles outweigh the average of the specialties (20.3 described roles: the weight of every specialty's shares of each certification, fitted on their own counts).

Source. CyberJobs.cc Research, The Security Leadership Job Market, live data.

For employers, recruiters and researchers

Buy the data behind this report

The figures above are a summary. Behind them are records we collect ourselves, every day:

  • 3,462 roles tracked, each with its history

    Every role on 696 job boards, read since 11 Nov 2026 (every hour since 11 Nov 2026): its pay and place, and the first and last day it was open.

  • 3,347 apply clicks in 4 days

    Which security roles people actually apply to, by specialty, pay and where the role is open. It happens on this site, so nobody else can count it.

  • fit checks of members against open roles

    How the people looking for security jobs here measure up against real postings, and what they lack when they fall short: years, a tool, a certification, a clearance.

What you can buy

  • The records

    The rows behind any figure, with their history, not only the totals.

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  • A custom cut or benchmark

    Your countries, specialties or certifications, or your own company against the market.

Hiring for security and want to reach the people behind this data? (you make the hire).

Method and definitions

The public job boards of the employers this site tracks (Greenhouse, Ashby, Lever, Workday, SmartRecruiters and the other systems they post on), read every hour, keeping the postings whose title and description read as security work. Apply clicks are made on CyberJobs.cc; full descriptions come from the employers whose boards publish them. Every figure is computed by one database query over the window shown, the same query for the live report and for every edition. Each figure states its sample beneath it.

Specialty
Each role is classified from its title and description into one of the 10 security specialties this site tracks (Security Operations & Incident Response, Security Engineering, Cloud Security, Application & Product Security, Identity & Access Management, Penetration Testing & Red Team, Threat Intelligence & Security Research, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Security Architecture & Consulting, Security Leadership). Every specialty links to its own page.
Open role
A role listed by a given day and still on its employer's board that day.
New listing
A role that first appeared during the window on an employer already tracked before that week. An employer's first week in this dataset is its back catalogue (the roles it already had up) and is not counted as new. When this site changes how it reads an employer's board (a page or department read too, a relevance rule changed), the roles that came into view or left it from that change to the end of its week are this site's reading, not the employer's hiring: they are not new listings or removals, and changes in open roles are measured like for like across it. Each employer's report says what changed.
Removed listing
A role that left its employer's board during the window, other than with a change in how this site reads the board (see New listing).
HHI
Herfindahl-Hirschman Index: the sum of every employer's squared percentage share of open roles, 0 to 10,000. Under 1,500 unconcentrated, 1,500 to 2,500 moderately, above 2,500 highly concentrated.
Advertised pay
The pay a posting publishes, on one scale: a year's pay in US dollars (the middle of a stated range; an hourly rate counts as 2,080 hours, a monthly one as 12 months). Pay in another currency is kept in that currency and left out of these medians. Counted once per distinct figure, as the job board counts it. Typical pay is the span from the 25th percentile of range midpoints to the 90th percentile of range tops, every figure taken as a full-time year (an hourly rate times 2,080 hours), stated from 3 distinct figures.
Clicks per open role a week
Apply clicks on CyberJobs.cc on a specific role, divided by the days the roles were open, times 7.
Demand index
Clicks per open role a week divided by the same rate across every role on the site. Above 1, the roles draw more applicants than the average role.
Where it is open
Read from each posting's location text and, where that names no country, from what the posting's own description states: open to applicants anywhere (remote worldwide), worldwide except listed countries, only listed countries (the country or countries the role is based in or hires from), or no rule stated.
Window
Live: the last 28 complete days, in UTC, and the last twelve complete ISO weeks (from the week of 11 Nov 2026 at the earliest) for the weekly series. Edition: one calendar month, in UTC, and its weeks.

What this data cannot tell you

  • Employers that hire without a public job board, or post only on LinkedIn or through recruiters, are not counted; government agencies and most staffing firms are not read.
  • A listing is not a hire. Some employers keep a role open for months, and some post one listing per city or country.
  • Apply clicks measure interest among the people who use this site, and what is shown first gets clicked more. Clicks are never published by employer.
  • Since 14 Nov 2026 an employer's own application opens from this site only where the employer pays this site for it, so apply clicks per open role are left out of any window that reaches that day: they would measure where the site sends people. The searches for the specialty are in What People Search For in Cybersecurity Jobs.
  • The weekly series and the new and removed listings appear once the board has six weeks of its own history (from 28 Dec 2026): in its first weeks the removals include roles this site's own relevance rules took off the board, and the first week is every employer's back catalogue.
  • A specialty with few open roles gives figures that move with a handful of postings: rows on too little data are marked as a small sample.

How the job feeds are read and roles are classified: site methodology. How fresh, complete and consistent the data is, checked every day: data quality and coverage.

Editions

The live report covers the last 28 complete days and changes every day. Each complete month is also published as an edition, frozen two days after the month ends, so a figure you cite from an edition never moves.

  • Live data (this page)Last 28 complete days, recomputed daily

Cite and reuse

Free to quote, chart and republish under CC BY 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) with a link to this page. Live figures change daily: cite a monthly edition for numbers that will read the same later, or keep the access date.

Citation

CyberJobs.cc (2026). The Security Leadership Job Market (live data, 11 Nov 2026 to 14 Nov 2026). https://cyberjobs.cc/research/security-leadership-job-market (accessed 15 Nov 2026)

BibTeX

@misc{cyberjobscc_security_leadership_job_market_live,
  author = {{CyberJobs.cc}},
  title = {The Security Leadership Job Market (live data, 11 Nov 2026 to 14 Nov 2026)},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://cyberjobs.cc/research/security-leadership-job-market}},
  note = {Accessed 15 Nov 2026},
}
Data: every figure as CSV (one line per value) and JSON, sent to your work email.Pay and open-roles data

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