Is there a decent security market outside of the federal government?

W Stewart

I'm currently pursuing a BSIT - Security at WGU and I'm wondering what the market looks like for non-federal security jobs. Are there a lot of them and what kind of requirements do they have outside of the obvious requirement for IT experience?

paul78

From what I can tell and I only have anecdotal information - but I've always assumed that there are a lot more security jobs in private sector than in federal government (at least for security jobs that don't involve weapons). I attend several information security conferences every year and I rarely meet security professionals in the public sector. And most public sector security professionals that I come across are usually tied to regulators in financial services or health care.

Of course - that could simply be the nature of the industry that I'm in.

But if I compare the number of available jobs on usajobs.com versus dice or monster, it seems like private sector has way more jobs.

the_Grinch

Definitely a ton of jobs in the private sector if that's where you want to go. Technically, the government contracts out most of their security work so in theory those are actually private sector jobs. But most mid to large companies have security teams now.

NovaHax

Security is HUGE in the private sector. Legal compliance standards such as HIPAA, PCI, SOX, etc.... hold private companies and organizations financially liable for security breaches if they are not practicing due diligence. Additionally, there are a lot of companies whose success is intrinsically tied to the protection of trade secrets.

JDMurray

The pay for Fed jobs is usually terrible when compared to the equivalent jobs in a private, commercial business too.

cyberguypr

Requirements will vary depending on the role. Just do a search on Indeed.com for your region. That will give you a good idea of what employers are looking for.