IT professionals holding an active security clearance are among the top earners in a list of the highest compensated professionals with security clearances this year, with many earning six-figure salaries. Not surprisingly, security-cleared IT pros also hold a compensatory advantage over their non-cleared counterparts, according to a new survey by ClearanceJobs.com.
The 2011 compensation survey, released Monday, found that security-cleared program or project managers in IT are second only to engineers when it comes to compensation. This year, IT program managers are slated to make an average of $103,924, an increase of 4 percent over 2010, the survey found.
Security-cleared software, programming and web developers also earn top dollar, with the average salary in 2011 at $97,501. Pay for those skills is down 1 percent since 2010, however.
In addition, the survey found that over the next decade, information security is likely to become even more important, meaning security-cleared professionals with certifications like CISSP are likely to be in even higher demand. And since the unemployment rate for technology professionals overall has been significantly under the national average since 2011, the demand and salaries for security-cleared IT workers also is likely to rise in the coming years, the survey noted.
Overall, the survey found that professionals holding an active security clearance had average earnings of $88,894, a decrease of 4 percent from the previous year. Security-cleared government workers earned an average of $83,577, a decline of 2 percent, while active duty and reserve military personnel earned an average of $68,262, an increase of 1 percent over last year. Salaries for security-cleared government contractors showed almost no change over 2010, with the average salary coming in at $98,221, the survey found.
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