Entry Level Cyber Security Salary (2025 Average Pay)

Because of the rise in cyber threats, cyber security jobs pay handsomely. 

But how much can you make at an entry-level position in this in-demand industry if you lack prior education or work experience in the field? There’s a lot of conflicting information out there, but this article provides you with all the answers to your questions.

We’ve crunched all the data you need, so you don’t have to. We’ll compare cyber security salaries with other tech jobs, explain how much you can expect the average base salary to be, and how to get your first cyber security job. 

Then, without further ado, let’s explore how your location, job role, and experience affect your entry level cyber security salary.

Cyber Security Salaries vs Other Tech Jobs

We can’t just say that entry-level positions in tech are generally well-paid without showing you the labor statistics. So, this section will give you a high-level summary of various entry-level salaries in tech in the USA and UK.

Entry Level Cyber Security Salaries in the USA

Here’s a snapshot of the annual national average salary in USD of popular entry-level job titles in the USA. It shows that the cyber security industry pays handsomely at entry-level, second to full-stack development:

Let’s look at the salaries across the pond.

Entry Level Cyber Security Salaries in the UK

The following table lists several annual average salaries of popular entry-level job titles in the UK. At the entry-level, a cyber security analyst gets paid on the high end, on par with a cloud engineer:

In the next section, we’ll explore entry-level cyber security salaries in depth.

What Is an Entry Level Cyber Security Salary?

Let’s refer to our Cyber Security Career Pathway infographic below:

By “entry-level,” we’re referring to:

1. Stage 3 general cyber security jobs such as “vulnerability tester,” “junior penetration tester,” and “cyber security analyst.” These jobs are available to candidates without paid employment in a cyber security role.
2. Stage 4 entry-level positions in certain intermediate job titles, such as those we’ll come to shortly.

Stage 3: General Cyber Security Entry Level Salaries

Your first job in cyber security is any of the Stage 3 positions, such as the ones we’ll discuss in this section. Prior work experience in networking or another feeder role (Stages 1 and 2) helps a lot when applying for the following jobs.

SOC Analyst/Cyber Security Analyst Tier 1

SOC stands for “security operations center.” A SOC Analyst or Cyber Security Analyst is an expert in cyber security working as part of a larger team that covers threat intelligence, information security analysis, and incident response, building a comprehensive cyber security defense strategy together. 

At Tier 1, you must know cyber security fundamentals like the back of your hand.

A SOC Analyst’s duties include:

• Conducting threat analyses
• Penetration testing
• Investigating and writing reports on cyber security issues
• Preparing and testing disaster recovery plans

Cyber security analysts may perform additional duties, such as monitoring network traffic, responding to events in real-time, installing and operating firewalls, encryption programs, and other security software, and fixing vulnerabilities.

Entry-level roles as a SOC Analyst or Cyber Security Analyst usually require less than three years of cyber security experience. A bachelor’s degree in computer science or industry-recognized certifications, such as the EC-Council's Certified SOC Analyst (CSA) or CompTIA’s Security+, can compensate for the lack of experience because they provide a solid foundation in the specific IT skills needed for these roles.

The table below has a brief overview of SOC Analyst salaries across the globe: 

Below is the median salary data for Cyber Security Analyst:

If you’re passionate about being on the frontlines of cyber security defense, such as penetration testing, the next entry-level role could be a good fit.

Junior Penetration Tester/Vulnerability Tester

“Prevention is better than cure,” the saying goes, and what better way to prevent a cyber attack than to discover and eliminate it in advance? Such is the role of a penetration tester.

Junior penetration testers typically work under the supervision of senior penetration testers in a team that enhances the security posture of an organization's computer network.

Duties include:

• Finding and exploiting vulnerabilities by potential threat actors
• Planning and implementing evaluation tests
• Keeping up-to-date on evolving threats
• Creating apps that facilitate penetration
• Giving organizations recommendations on discovered vulnerabilities
• Improving security measures

You’re entry-level if you have a pentesting certification, such as CEH or Pentest+, and up to three years of experience.

The following is a snapshot of Junior Penetration Tester/Vulnerability Tester salaries in the world:

If you’re an excellent communicator who enjoys looking for ways to improve an organization’s cyber security policies, the next entry-level role is worth considering.

Security Auditor

Security Auditors review computer systems to determine their security. They consider governance, risk, and compliance with policies inside and outside their organization. Most Security Auditors work on a departmental level, but some organizations are small enough for a single audit of the entire system.

Duties include collecting audit data while testing the efficacy of cyber security defenses, reviewing security controls, writing and presenting audit reports recommending improvements, and staying abreast of developments in emerging practices and technologies, the cyber security threat landscape, and regional cyber security laws, regulations, and policies.

Here’s an excellent video on what it means to be a Junior Security Auditor—it begins with satire: 

The main takeaway is that an entry-level position as a Security Auditor requires at least three years of work experience and preferably a certification such as CISM, CISA, and CISSP.

As the job title “Security Auditor” can have meanings other than cyber security, we have deliberately chosen to report only the average salaries of Cyber/IT/Information Security Auditors for the USA, the UK, and India. We used “IT Auditor” for the other three countries as they returned few results for “Security Auditor,” but an IT Auditor’s job responsibilities overlap with a Security Auditor’s:

But what if you’re making a career transition to cyber security and don’t want to start from scratch? The next section contains entry-level cyber security jobs for those who already have some work experience under their belt.

Stage 4: Junior Specialist Cyber Security Salaries

These intermediate entry-level roles require direct experience in the cyber security field instead of IT or networking. 

This section is suitable for people interested in making a career transition to cyber security and who want to leverage their background and work experience instead of starting from the bottom of the rung like most entry-level jobs.

Network Security Administrator/Support

In every organization with computer systems, a typical in-house IT support professional responds to technical issues and updates operating systems instead of continuously monitoring existing networking infrastructure for vulnerabilities and securing it. 

The latter is the job of a Network Security Administrator. Similar job titles replace “Administrator” with “Support,” “Specialist,” or “Engineer.”

Network Security Administrators are important because they help the rest of the organization focus on solving business problems without the hassles of security issues. 

They’re responsible for procuring, installing, and maintaining hardware and software systems that ensure network security and creating and enforcing network security policies and rules.

Entry-level Network Security Administrator positions refer to those that ask for less than five years of previous work experience in IT, networking, or cyber security. It’s unlikely for this to become your first cyber security job. We have a curated list of network security certifications that will help you land this job.

Here’s a glance at Network Security Administrator/Support salaries over the world:

Cloud Security Architect

The rise in popularity of cloud-based services leads to increased demand for professionals who can ensure the safety of cloud applications and data stored on the cloud.

A Cloud Security Architect keeps cloud computing environments secure by building, designing, and installing security systems for cloud-based computing and data storage systems. In this position, you’ll stay updated with your organization’s latest cloud security regulations and best practices.

Duties include:

• Planning and implementing cloud security strategies and policies meeting an organization’s specific needs
• Protecting cloud data and applications against unauthorized access and other threats
• Identifying and addressing vulnerabilities through regular security assessments and audits
• Collaborating with other IT professionals to integrate cloud security measures into existing processes

Owing to the sensitivity of cloud data and apps and the complex regulatory aspects of cloud computing, many cloud jobs require five or more years of experience. Therefore, what we consider entry-level in this context would be jobs requiring one to three years of cloud computing and cyber security work experience. 

Cloud security certifications such as CCSP can make you attractive to recruiters.

Here’s a snapshot of Cloud Security Architect salaries across the world:

If your ultimate career goal isn’t the technical nuts and bolts of cyber security but its governance and regulatory aspects, including becoming a CISO, the next entry-level job could be a good launchpad, especially if you don’t have a technical background.

Compliance Officer

Cyber security compliance is a major challenge for organizations—especially small and medium businesses—because overlapping and conflicting industry standards and requirements can lead to confusion and wasted efforts.

A Cyber Security Compliance Officer ensures a company adheres to standards, regulations, and policies established by an external agency, law, or authority to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability (CIA) of data entrusted to or passing through the company from cyber-attacks and leakage.

Your duties include monitoring operations and processes, conducting compliance risk assessments, and updating the staff and senior management about changes in cyber security legislation, regulations, and guidelines pertinent to the organization.

If you want this job, you must know your desired company and industry. You’ll have an edge if you have a legal, business, or economics background in tandem with your cyber security expertise or several years of work experience in your company/industry. Certifications such as CISSP and Security+ help greatly.

The years of experience we consider entry-level vary widely, but having one to four years in cyber security gives you an advantage. Here are relevant job ads on Indeed:

You can consider this “senior” position if you have over five years of cyber security or compliance experience. Either or both are fine.

Keywords used in cyber security compliance job titles affect salaries. According to ZipRecruiter, the average yearly wage in USD of a Cyber Security Compliance Analyst is $99,400, that of a Cyber Security Compliance Officer is $132,962, that of an Information Security Compliance Officer is $148,746, and that of “Cyber Security GRC” (Governance, Risk and Compliance) is $122,890.

Here’s the data for other countries taken from Glassdoor, ZipRecruiter, and SalaryExplorer:

That’s all for our basic overview of entry-level cyber security salaries.

Getting Your First Cyber Security Job

Among the myriad ways to land your first cyber security job, where should you begin?

Firstly, assess whether your desired cyber security job fits you well. How fast do you pick up technical concepts on the fly? How quickly do you think on your feet? For certain job types, how comfortable are you with working irregular hours on-call to address the ever-changing landscape of cyber threats?

Take a short quiz on what cyber security job is suitable for you:

Once you’ve found a suitable cybersecurity career goal, the next thing is how to get your feet into the door. Cyber security recruiters look for credentials, education, and experience.

You’ll focus on:

• Taking certification courses
• Learning new skills
• Gaining relevant experience (spoiler: it’s much easier than you think)
• Starting cyber security projects
• Building your resume
• Networking online and offline

It helps to have a mentor to guide you through the process.

Conclusion

How much can you make in an entry-level cyber security job? According to the data, you can get quite an impressive salary even at this stage. It’s easy to think of all the opportunities this increased income brings you.

We’ve covered cyber security salaries in general, entry-level cyber security salaries, and how to get your first cyber security job. If that’s your goal, you’re in the right place.

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