The CISSP has long been considered the gold standard of security certifications and adding those letters next to your name is no easy task. In order to even qualify, you’re required to have a minimum of 5 years full time experience directly in the infosec field, or 4 years experience and a college degree. According to (ISC)², as of October 2016, only 89,932 people hold the certification worldwide. Earlier this month, the folks over at PayScale.com surveyed a group of 3,872 CISSPs finding their average yearly salary ranged from $54,820 to $152,311 (quite a spread)- depending on the participants location, years of experience and job title.

According to the study, the highest population of CISSPs are located in Washington DC, New York City and Atlanta Georgia. The city with the highest average salary was New York City, coming in at $119,840/yr. You can see each city’s respective median salary in the image below:

2018 CISSP Mean Salary By City

City Salary Data Washington, District of Columbia $110,142.00 New York, New York $119,840.00 Atlanta, Georgia $96,372.00 Chicago, Illinois $101,687.00 San Diego, California $102,421.00 Dallas, Texas $102,439.00 Boston, Massachusetts $103,520.00

It should come as no surprise that the more experience you have, the more money you will make. You can see the Median Salary for a CISSP based off years experience below:

2018 CISSP Mean Salary by Years Experience

Years of Experience National Salary Data Less than 1 year $51,244.00 1-4 years $69,899.00 5-9 years $87,005.00 10-19 years $102,591.00 20+ years $117,291.00

Finally, here’s a look at the job titles that have the highest median salary. You can see from the image below that Security Architects, Information Security Managers and Information Technology Directors earn the highest wages.

2018 CISSP Mean Salary by Job Title (CISSP Jobs)

Salary By Job Title (CISSP Jobs) National Salary Data Information Security Analyst $80,540.00 Information Security Manager $105,152.00 Security Consultant $93,529.00 Information Security Officer $103,183.00 Information technology (IT) Director $105,112.00 Security Architect, IT $110,451.00 Security Engineer, Information Systems $92,793.00

One particularly interesting finding of this study is that women who hold the CISSP cert earn significantly less than their male counterparts. The average salary for a female CISSP falls between $73,627 and $111,638, while the average male salary is between $78,788 and $119,184.

The CISSP is a foundational certification for those seeking a higher level security profession as well as one of the most highly sought after certs in the IT industry. For more information on how you can start the CISSP certification process, fill out the form below to find out about our various training options (self paced, online mentored & instructor lead) and pricing information.

Want to receive the best CISSP training in the industry? Check out Infosec’s training boot camp! Just fill out the form below for pricing details to Infosec’s CISSP course.

See what our Instructor Kelly has to say about our CISSP training and check out our new practice test engine, SkillSet.com, for thousands of free CISSP practice questions.

References:

[1] https://www.isc2.org/Member-Counts.aspx

[2] http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Certification=Certified_Information_Systems_Security_Professional_(CISSP)/Salary

[3] https://www.infosecinstitute.com/courses/cissp-boot-camp

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This post has been updated continuously – first posted Oct. 2013.