---
title: "Information Security Analyst"
description: "Plan, implement, upgrade, or monitor security measures for the protection of computer networks and information. Assess system vulnerabilities for…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/information-security-analyst"
last-updated: "2026-08-23T15:56:39.581Z"
---

# Information Security Analyst

**Category:** Computer and Mathematical · **SOC code:** 15-1212 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 15-1212.00

Plan, implement, upgrade, or monitor security measures for the protection of computer networks and information. Assess system vulnerabilities for security risks and propose and implement risk mitigation strategies. May ensure appropriate security controls are in place that will safeguard digital files and vital electronic infrastructure. May respond to computer security breaches and viruses.

Also advertised as: Information Security Officer; Information Security Specialist; Information Systems Security Analyst; Information Systems Security Officer (ISSO); Information Technology Security Analyst (IT Security Analyst); Network Security Analyst; Security Analyst; Systems Analyst.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $129,180 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $62.11/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $75,090 to $199,850, with the middle half between $97,810 and $163,500
- **Total US employment:** 190,650
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +28.5% over 2024–2034 (BLS EP, 2024–2034)
- **Annual job openings:** 16,000 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 14/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 190,650 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $75,090 |
| 25th | $97,810 |
| 50th (median) | $129,180 |
| 75th | $163,500 |
| 90th | $199,850 |
| Mean (average) | $132,510 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| WA | $154,940 | $144,786 | 6,030 |
| MD | $139,640 | $133,042 | 8,650 |
| CA | $138,570 | $125,154 | 15,570 |
| DE | $137,030 | $137,294 | 720 |
| MA | $136,550 | $129,117 | 6,100 |
| CO | $135,220 | $131,215 | 5,700 |
| DC | $135,090 | $122,920 | 1,510 |
| VA | $134,900 | $133,427 | 19,120 |
| NJ | $134,820 | $123,910 | 4,860 |
| NY | $134,660 | $124,776 | 10,060 |
| NC | $131,540 | $139,453 | 8,670 |
| MN | $130,710 | $132,538 | 2,680 |
| CT | $130,570 | $126,021 | 1,170 |
| NM | $130,070 | $141,055 | 2,470 |
| TX | $129,890 | $133,829 | 16,130 |

34 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 49 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/information-security-analyst/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/information-security-analyst.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 182,800 in the 2024–2034 base year to 234,900 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 52,100 jobs, or +28.5%. Much faster than average: 28.5% against 3.1% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 16,000 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2024–2034.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's degree (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Medium preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** Less than 5 years.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** None.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| Bachelor's Degree | 52.6% |
| Post-Baccalaureate Certificate | 22.5% |
| Associate's Degree (or other 2-year degree) | 12.9% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 7.2% |
| Master's Degree | 2.8% |
| Some College Courses | 2.0% |

## What the work involves

- Document computer security and emergency measures policies, procedures, and tests.
- Develop plans to safeguard computer files against accidental or unauthorized modification, destruction, or disclosure and to meet emergency data processing needs.
- Confer with users to discuss issues such as computer data access needs, security violations, and programming changes.
- Train users and promote security awareness to ensure system security and to improve server and network efficiency.
- Review violations of computer security procedures and discuss procedures with violators to ensure violations are not repeated.
- Monitor use of data files and regulate access to safeguard information in computer files.
- Modify computer security files to incorporate new software, correct errors, or change individual access status.
- Perform risk assessments and execute tests of data processing system to ensure functioning of data processing activities and security measures.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Analysis — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operations Monitoring — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Quality Control Analysis — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Evaluation — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Computers and Electronics — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Engineering and Technology — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Telecommunications — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Inductive Reasoning — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Conventional (C), Investigative (I), Realistic (R).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| C — Conventional | 6.08 |
| I — Investigative | 5.40 |
| R — Realistic | 3.56 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.85 |
| S — Social | 2.11 |
| A — Artistic | 1.34 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ISTJ | 88.2 |
| INTJ | 75.2 |
| ESTJ | 73.4 |
| ISTP | 70.5 |
| ISFJ | 68.7 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Information Security Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/information-security-engineer) — median $116,580
- [Penetration Tester](https://nuecareer.com/careers/penetration-tester) — median $116,580
- [Digital Forensics Analyst](https://nuecareer.com/careers/digital-forensics-analyst) — median $116,580
- [Network and Computer Systems Administrator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/network-and-computer-systems-administrator) — median $99,130
- [Computer Systems Analyst](https://nuecareer.com/careers/computer-systems-analyst) — median $105,850
- [Computer Network Support Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/computer-network-support-specialist) — median $76,220
- [Database Administrator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/database-administrator) — median $104,620
- [Computer Systems Engineers/Architect](https://nuecareer.com/careers/computer-systems-engineers-architect) — median $116,580
- [Computer Network Architect](https://nuecareer.com/careers/computer-network-architect) — median $134,050
- [Blockchain Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/blockchain-engineer) — median $116,580

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 30.3 Database, May 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2024–2034. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2024–2034 edition. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 30.3 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/information-security-analyst