Cybersecurity Salary: What the Job Pays at Every Level

Cybersecurity pays well above the typical American job. The federal wage survey puts the median information security analyst at $129,180 a year as of May 2025, with the middle half of workers earning between $97,810 and $163,500. Where you live, how long you’ve worked and whether you manage people move the number more than any single credential.

How Much Does a Cybersecurity Job Pay?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) counts about 190,650 information security analysts nationwide. That is the closest federal job title to everyday cybersecurity work, so this page uses it as the anchor for what “cybersecurity pay” means.

Here is the national spread from the May 2025 survey.

The median works out to $62.11 an hour. The gap between the bottom and top tenth is enormous, and that gap is the real story. Two people with the same job title can be paid very differently depending on employer, city and years on the job.

Why Do Salary Websites Give Different Cybersecurity Numbers?

You’ve probably seen a dozen different figures. Job boards build their estimates from posted salaries or from whatever users type in, and the mix of job titles behind each estimate changes from site to site. A site that lumps in managers will show a higher number than one that counts only entry-level postings.

The federal survey is different. It asks employers to report what they pay in a defined job category, and it publishes percentiles by state. It doesn’t tell you pay by degree or by certification, but it does give you a stable baseline you can check yourself.

Use any single estimate as a rough guide, then compare it with the range above. If a posting sits near the 25th percentile, it’s a starter-level offer. If it’s near the 75th, it should come with real responsibility.

Which States Pay Cybersecurity Workers the Most?

Washington leads the state medians at $154,940, followed by Maryland at $139,640, California at $138,570, Delaware at $137,030 and Massachusetts at $136,550. Colorado, the District of Columbia, Virginia, New Jersey and New York all land between $134,660 and $135,220.

Pay is not the same as opportunity, though. Virginia employs 19,120 analysts, more than any other state, and Texas employs 16,130. California has 15,570 and Florida has 14,220. Texas and Florida pay near or a little below the national median, at $129,890 and $124,860, but they hire in large numbers.

Some states report very high top-end pay on small payrolls. Tennessee’s 90th percentile is $250,590, yet the state’s median is $115,430. When a state’s top number looks out of line with its median, a handful of very high salaries is usually behind it.

If you’re choosing where to study, you can usually work in any of these states with an online degree. Where you live and where you’re hired are separate questions, and remote policies vary by employer.

How Much Does Experience Change Cybersecurity Pay?

The survey doesn’t publish pay by years of experience, so we can’t give you a precise ladder. What the percentiles do show is how much room there is to climb. Someone at the 25th percentile earns $97,810. Someone at the 75th earns $163,500.

Most people close that gap in one of three ways. They move into a specialty such as cloud security or incident response. They take on design work as an architect. Or they move into management.

Management is where the survey shows the biggest jump. The category for computer and information systems managers has a median of $175,140 and a mean of $192,160. That category includes security leaders but isn’t limited to them, so treat it as a ceiling indicator, not a promise.

How Does Cybersecurity Pay Compare With Nearby IT Jobs?

Pay for security work sits above network administration and below senior management. The May 2025 medians for related federal job titles look like this.

An administrator who adds security duties moves toward the analyst row. An analyst who learns network design moves toward the architect row. Our systems administrator salary page shows what that first step looks like in detail.

Compliance work is the lowest-paid path in the table, but it also has the lowest entry barrier for people coming from audit or legal backgrounds. It’s worth knowing about if the technical side doesn’t appeal to you.

Does a Degree Raise Your Cybersecurity Salary?

BLS lists a bachelor’s degree as the typical entry-level education for information security analysts and says graduate school isn’t required. So a degree is the standard doorway, not a guaranteed raise.

What a degree does is widen the set of jobs open to you. Many employers screen on a bachelor’s, and the management and architecture tracks that carry the higher medians often prefer a graduate degree. Certifications such as the CISSP can matter as much as a degree for mid-career moves, and our CISSP requirements guide explains what they ask for.

The cost side is easy to check. In the online programs we compare, the median total tuition is $25,488 for a master’s, $54,780 for a bachelor’s and $15,822 for an associate degree. Per-credit prices in the master’s programs range from $235 to $2,712, so shopping matters. Our cheapest online cybersecurity degrees list sorts by price and shows what each program charges in total.

If you’re weighing the investment, read is a cybersecurity degree worth it next. For a view of the whole field by level, start with the best online cybersecurity degrees.

What Do the Larger States Pay?

Median pay is only half of the picture for a state. The other half is how many analysts it employs, because that sets how many jobs you can apply for without moving. Here are the states with the most analysts, with their May 2025 medians.

Three of those seven states pay within a few thousand dollars of the national median. Maryland and California pay more, and Virginia sits close behind them.

Smaller states can still be good bets for remote work or for people who already live there. New Mexico has a median of $130,070 and Minnesota has $130,710, both a touch above the national figure, with 2,470 and 2,680 analysts respectively.

At the other end, Mississippi’s median is $87,690 and Montana’s is $81,950. If you live in a lower-paying state, a remote role with an employer in a higher-paying one is the usual way to close the gap.

How Do You Read a Percentile in a Job Offer?

A percentile tells you what share of workers earn less than a given amount. The 25th percentile of $97,810 means a quarter of analysts earn less than that and three quarters earn more. It’s a handy ruler for any offer you receive.

If an offer lands below the 25th percentile, ask what the role covers. Some titles that sound like security work are help desk duties with a new name. If an offer lands near the median, it’s usually a role with real ownership of a function, such as monitoring or vulnerability management. Offers above the 75th percentile tend to come with on-call duty, supervision or a rare specialty.

Check the state table too. An offer of $110,480 matches the Ohio state median exactly, though the same figure is closer to a starter offer in California, where the 25th percentile is already $101,840. The same number means different things in different places.

Last, compare the offer with the hourly figure. The national median of $62.11 an hour helps if you’re weighing contract work against a salary, since contractors usually pay for their own benefits and downtime.

Which Roles Sit Above the Median?

Three paths show up in the survey data as consistently higher paid than the analyst title.

Computer network architects have a median of $134,050 and a 90th percentile of $202,680. They design the networks that analysts defend, so the job suits people who like planning more than responding. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 8 percent growth for the group from 2025 to 2035.

Computer and information systems managers have a median of $175,140, and a quarter of them earn $220,730 or more. BLS projects 16 percent growth, with about 53,500 openings a year. The jobs go to people who have already worked in the field, which is why the master’s degrees built around management are popular with working adults.

The third path is staying technical in a state or industry that pays a premium. The 90th percentile for analysts in Massachusetts is $226,190 and in California it’s $221,000. Those figures show what senior specialists earn when they work for employers that compete hard for talent.

How Do Online Degree Prices Compare With These Salaries?

Cost is the other half of the pay question, and it varies more than most people expect. Across the programs we compare, the median price per credit is $309 at the associate level, $426 for bachelor’s degrees and $737 for master’s degrees. Doctoral programs have a median of $968.

The ranges are wide. Associate programs run from $107 to $716 a credit, bachelor’s programs from $275.65 to $1,139 and master’s programs from $235 to $2,712. The same degree can cost several times more at one school than another, and the career outcome doesn’t automatically follow the price.

That’s why the cost lists matter. Our online master’s in cybersecurity list and the online bachelor’s in cybersecurity list both show tuition, delivery and admission details side by side, so you can see what a degree costs before you apply. Employer tuition help and military rates change the final bill, and 22 programs on our list publish a military rate.

What Should You Do With This Number?

Use the percentiles to set expectations, not to promise yourself a result. A realistic plan looks like this.

Start by checking where your target state’s median falls against the national figure. Then decide if you’re aiming for the lower half of the range, where entry-level roles sit, or the upper half, where specialists and managers sit. Price your degree against that target, and look for programs that include labs, an internship or exam preparation so you can show skills when you apply.

Finally, remember that the survey describes people already employed. It says nothing about how quickly any one graduate gets hired. Pay is one input. Fit, location and the quality of your hands-on experience decide the rest.

If you want to see what the top of the range takes, can you make $200,000 in cybersecurity walks through the percentiles and the roles that reach them. For the starting end, see entry-level cybersecurity salary.