Are you interested in becoming a security engineer? Do you want to discover the talent market for this position? This article gives a description of the job, defines the offer and demand in many locations and provides salary benchmarking for security engineers.

What is a security engineer?

Security engineers, as its name indicates, are the professionals in charge of making a business network secure. There are many potential threats against computer systems: from multiple cyberattacks to natural disasters. Their job consists of analyzing networks, making sure they are running smoothly and trying to protect the system from future menaces.

Usually, they are part of the technology team. They report their findings to upper management or a security-engineering leader in large companies.

There are some variants, like cyber security engineers or application security engineers (AppSec). Cybersecurity engineers are security engineers with a more technical approach, and without focusing that much on the legal aspects.

AppSec engineers differ from the rest of the security engineers since they are related both to security and development. In small companies, maybe the resources are limited and a single employee can develop both roles. However, in big companies, there are sometimes two different teams, the engineering team and the security team. Security engineers are part of security (which also includes security analysts), while AppSec engineers are part of engineering.

What profiles are more common?

The main personality traits needed are methodology and rationality. Employees between 24 and 32 years old are usually part of the security team, is extremely rare to find security engineers older than 45. Just 16.7% of the labour force in security is female, lower than the 29.3% of women in the IT industry.

What education is recommended?

TalentUp had the opportunity to talk with two professionals in this sector. Arnau Alcázar, who is an application security lead, and Oriol Riba, who is a cyber security engineer.

Riba also reinforces the idea that many things need to be learned in the field. Having said that, he also studied Telecommunications Engineering, worked in security consulting, and then decided to pursue a Master’s degree in Cyber Security. He also holds some certifications.

Riba made a point about security engineers. Some professionals have been in that position for more than 15 years. However, degrees in that field are very rare and are being created currently. Masters in cyber security are also a recent thing. Many of the professionals with more years of experience have been self-educated, by keeping an eye on current trends and possible courses to take autonomously.

Analyzing the talent market for security engineers

All cities with more security engineers among their workers are from western Europe. The ones with more professionals are Paris and Madrid. Some cities are growing lately, especially Barcelona and Amsterdam. London is the city demanding more professionals by a huge difference.

Types of companies hiring security engineers

Affording to have a security team is a privilege reserved for big companies. Small companies usually outsource security management to a consulting group. Only 14 percent of security engineers work in companies with fewer than 100 workers. And, as seen before, even big companies have small security teams. The share of security engineers, with respect to all workers, just surpasses 1% when the core business of that company is development support.

Salary benchmarking for security engineers

Map of salaries in Europe

Made with Visme Presentation Maker

Map of the average salary of security engineers in Europe by country. Also, salaries for security engineers are compared to the cost of living in the second slide. Source: TalentUp’s database. 

Apart from the base salary, security engineers usually have full benefits. Health insurance, a 401(k) plan, and professional development are also common for that position.

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