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Inside the 2026 cybersecurity talent landscape
Cybersecurity leaders are under increasing pressure to retain talent while managing flat or constrained budgets. As roles evolve and pay expectations rise, having credible, market-backed data is essential.
This report delivers compensation and staffing benchmarks from 500+ security professionals to help CISOs make confident decisions on staffing models, pay levels, and retention strategies.
Inside the report:
- Role expectations: How security roles are expanding across domains—and what that means for team design.
- Compensation benchmarks: Current salary ranges by role, industry, and company size.
- Retention signals: What's driving job mobility and satisfaction among security professionals.
- Workforce planning data: Insights to support compensation planning, career paths, and retention.
How the CISO Comp Report helps boost CISO & security team pay
In this IANS Faculty insight, Shannon Lietz breaks down why the CISO Compensation Report has become one of the most important tools for today’s security leaders. She explains how she uses the data to benchmark headcount, justify budget requests, understand team structure, and identify opportunities for automation and talent growth.
These compensation numbers are highly correlated with both company scale and complexity. Regulated companies such as banks, product companies such as Fortune 500 SaaS organizations, and OT-/IoT-centric roles in aerospace & defense and advanced manufacturing command the highest salaries.
Additional resources
The CISO in 2030: Build Skills Now to Lead as the Role Evolves
Structure Cybersecurity Teams for Resilience
Transform Security From a Blocker to a Business Enabler
