Cybersecurity Salary in the US: Entry Level to $100K+

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Key Takeaways

• BLS – US puts the median information security analyst salary at $129,180, more than double the all-occupation median of $50,980.
• Entry-Level Cybersecurity Salary usually starts below the headline figures; the BLS bottom 10% earns under $75,090.
• Many Career Changers enter through IT support, where the BLS median is $62,890, before moving into security.
• Cybersecurity Analyst Salary ranges from $102,250 to $147,750 in Robert Half’s 2026 national guide.
• Cybersecurity Engineer Salary reaches $190,750 at the high end, and security managers can earn more than $200,000.
• Fortray – Cybersecurity Engineer Traineeship combines hands-on labs/projects, 1:1 mentorship, and placement support for career changers starting with zero IT experience.

If you search for “cybersecurity salary”, you’ll find figures from $55K to $200K for what looks like the same job. The spread isn’t noise. It reflects where someone sits on the ladder: help desk, first analyst seat, engineer, architect, or manager. For a career changer, the useful question isn’t “what does cybersecurity pay?” It’s “what will I earn at each step, and how long does each step take?”

In the US, Fortray helps career changers answer that question every day, from people with no IT background to IT professionals ready to move into security. This breakdown combines federal wage data, national salary benchmarks, and hiring research to map the real salary progression for US cybersecurity roles, so you can plan your next move with numbers you can trust.

What Do the National Cybersecurity Salary Numbers Measure?

The most-quoted figure comes from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Information security analysts earned a median of $129,180 in May 2025, while the median across all US occupations was $50,980. The spread within the occupation is wide: the bottom 10 percent earned under $75,090, and the top 10 percent earned over $199,850.

That median is a mid-career benchmark, not a starting offer. Many analysts previously worked in IT departments, often as network and computer systems administrators, so the people behind that $129K figure usually arrived with prior technical experience.

Demand keeps pay high. BLS projects 21 percent employment growth from 2025 to 2035, with roughly 14,100 openings each year. Job-posting data points the same way: NIST – CyberSeek update reported that employers posted 514,359 cybersecurity job listings over 12 months, about 12% more than the prior period.

The market isn’t frictionless, though. In the 2025 ISC2 Cybersecurity Workforce Study, 36% of respondents reported budget cuts, and 24% reported layoffs, each down one point from the prior year. Employers are still hiring, but they’re paying for proven skills, not the job titles.