By many accounts, 2015 was the year of the big data professional, with data scientists even being hailed as the “sexiest job of the year” by one study. But 2016 may emerge as the year of the chief security officer, as another new study reveals that pay for CSOs is rising faster than most every other IT job.

According to the 2016 Technology Salary Survey released this month by Robert Half Technology, top CSOs can now expect to earn just under a quarter million dollars in base pay. To be more specific, salaries for CSOs will range from $140,250 to $222,500 in the New Year. This represents an average pay increase of 7.0 percent, the fourth highest in the entire salary study. Only wireless network engineers (at 9.7 percent), big data engineers (at 7.5 percent) and data security analysts (at 7.1 percent) will see larger pay hikes.

CSO pay increases will also be significantly higher than other IT executives in 2016. According to the Robert Half study, the percent of salary increase in the top ranks of IT will be 4.9 percent for CIOs; 5.2 percent for CTOs; 5.1 percent for vice presidents of IT; 5.1 percent for technology directors; and 4.9 percent for IT managers.