Security professionals are reporting lower levels of job satisfaction, a sign of trouble for an industry struggling with higher stress levels and lower work-life balance, researchers report.
To gain a better sense of skills, salary, satisfaction, and stress in today's security industry, Exabeam researchers polled 479 security professionals in the US, UK, Canada, India, Australia, and the Netherlands. Their results show 71% of respondents are "satisfied" or "very satisfied" with their positions in 2019, compared with 83% in 2018. More than three-quarters say they feel secure in their jobs, and 78% say they would recommend a career in security, they report.
"It's not clear what contributed to the drop," says Trevor Daughney, vice president at Exabeam. "However, symptoms of job dissatisfaction were visible elsewhere in the report."
Sixty-two percent of respondents say their jobs are "stressful" or "very stressful," he adds, and 44% feel they lack work-life balance. "It is a struggle," says Charity Wright, security intelligence threat researcher at IntSights, pointing to the industry's talent shortage. "A lot of it would be relieved if we had more people. … If we had more people, our workload wouldn't be so heavy."
Forty percent of respondents are actively job searching. More than half (51%) are motivated by poor compensation and unsupportive leadership, which is interesting given the median salary is $75,000 to $100,000 and 53% of respondents report salary satisfaction — up 35% from last year.
Salary satisfaction fluctuated by job title: CISOs were the most satisfied (64%) and report a median salary of $125,000 to $150,000. They were followed by cybersecurity analysts and threat/intel research analysts (59%), who reported a salary of $50,000 to $75,000, and information security analysts (58%), who reported the same salary range. Information security directors have the high ..
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