Information Security Analyst Salary: What the Government Wage Data Shows

The median information security analyst salary is $129,180 a year, or $62.11 an hour, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics survey for May 2025. Half of analysts earn between $97,810 and $163,500. Where you work changes the number a lot, from a median of $154,940 in Washington to $81,950 in Montana.

What Is the National Median Pay?

The BLS survey counted 190,650 information security analysts in May 2025. Here is how their pay was spread.

• Median: $129,180 a year, or $62.11 an hour.
• Mean: $132,510 a year, or $63.71 an hour.
• 10th percentile: $75,090.
• 25th percentile: $97,810.
• 75th percentile: $163,500.
• 90th percentile: $199,850.

Read the spread, not just the middle. A quarter of analysts earn $97,810 or less, and a quarter earn $163,500 or more. The mean sits a little above the median, which means a group of high earners pulls the average up.

BLS has a separate occupation for this job, so these figures describe information security analysts directly. They are not borrowed from a neighboring occupation.

How Does Pay Change With Experience?

BLS does not publish pay by years of experience, so we won’t invent year bands. What the survey does give you is percentiles, and they are the best stand-in.

Think of them as rungs. The 10th percentile of $75,090 and the 25th of $97,810 mix newer analysts with people in lower-paying states and smaller employers. The 75th and 90th percentiles, $163,500 and $199,850, include people in the highest-paying states and senior roles.

The distance between the bottom rung and the top one is large. It tells you there is room to grow, but it does not tell you how long it takes or what it requires. The honest way to use it is as a range to check against real job postings.

Which States Pay Information Security Analysts the Most?

Location is the biggest lever. These states have the highest medians, with their worker counts so you can see how large each market is.

Delaware has a median of $137,030 and the District of Columbia has $135,090, but both employ far fewer analysts, 720 and 1,510.

Ranked by annual mean instead, Washington is first at $156,080, then Massachusetts at $151,000, Maryland at $149,940, California at $149,090 and New York at $144,720.

Where Do the Most Analysts Work?

A high median doesn’t help if there are few jobs. By headcount, the largest markets are Virginia with 19,120 analysts, Texas with 16,130, California with 15,570, Florida with 14,220 and New York with 10,060.

Texas pays a median of $129,890, close to the national figure of $129,180. Florida’s median is $124,860, a little below it.

Virginia is the interesting case. It has the most analysts of any state and a median of $134,900, which is above the national median. A large market and a strong median together mean more openings to choose from.

If you can pick where to live, compare the percentile range as well as the median. California’s range runs from $101,840 to $177,890, so a lot depends on which employer you land with.

Which States Pay the Least?

The lowest medians are in smaller markets. Montana’s is $81,950 with 380 analysts, Mississippi’s is $87,690 with 480 and Nebraska’s is $92,550 with 1,210.

Indiana’s median is $101,420 and Kansas’s is $100,620. Both sit well below the national median of $129,180.

A lower salary can still go further. Check how these medians compare after housing and taxes before you compare cities. The distance between Virginia and Montana shows how much the state you choose can change what an analyst job pays.

One more caution. BLS leaves out some figures it cannot publish reliably, and Idaho has no median in the May 2025 release. When a state shows a blank, that is the survey’s choice, not a sign of zero jobs.

What Does Hourly Pay Look Like?

If you are leaving an hourly job, hourly figures are easier to hold against what you earn now. The national median is $62.11 an hour and the mean is $63.71.

By state, the median runs from $74.49 an hour in Washington to $39.40 in Montana. Maryland’s is $67.14, California’s is $66.62, Virginia’s is $64.86 and Texas’s is $62.45.

Remember that these are wages for the hours worked. If your analyst job includes on-call time or long hours during an incident, your real hourly rate depends on how your employer handles that, and the survey can’t tell you.

What Else Moves Pay?

Our data covers state and percentile, and it supports three plain observations.

Where you work. The gap between Washington’s median of $154,940 and Montana’s $81,950 is larger than the gap between the 25th and 75th percentile in some states. Moving, or working for an employer in a high-pay state, can matter more than any one credential.

Where you sit in the range. Inside any state the spread is wide. In Maryland the middle half runs from $106,790 to $183,260.

What you know. Skills matter, but the survey does not measure them, so we can’t put a number on any one skill or certification. Read job postings in your area and look at what the higher-paying ones ask for.

How Do You Read a Salary Offer Against This Data?

Start with the state table, find your state’s median and note the 25th and 75th percentiles. An offer near the 25th percentile sits in the lower part of the range, and one near the 75th sits in the upper part.

Then check the offer against the national picture. If it falls below $97,810, it sits in the bottom quarter nationally, though a lower-cost state may explain that.

Ask what the offer includes. BLS measures wages, so health coverage, bonuses and retirement matching are outside these numbers. A lower base with strong benefits can beat a higher base without them.

What Does an Information Security Analyst Do for That Pay?

Pay makes more sense next to the work. BLS says analysts monitor their organization’s networks for security breaches and investigate when one occurs. They maintain firewalls and encryption software, check systems for vulnerabilities, and write reports on attempted attacks and breaches.

The job includes pressure. When a breach happens, you are one of the people who has to find out what went wrong. Some analysts are on call.

Our career page for information security analysts covers the day-to-day work, the skills and how people get hired.

What Is the Job Outlook Behind the Pay?

BLS projects employment of information security analysts to grow 21 percent from 2025 to 2035, which it calls much faster than average. That is about 40,600 more jobs on a base of 192,900 in 2025.

It also expects about 14,100 openings a year. Those include people who leave the occupation as well as new jobs.

Projections are estimates, and BLS revises them each cycle. They say demand is growing, but they can’t promise a particular salary in a particular town.

What Does an Online AI Degree Cost Next to This Pay?

BLS lists a bachelor’s degree as the typical entry education for this job and says graduate school is not required. So a degree is not a toll you must pay, and you should price it before you commit.

Here are the totals.

• Cheapest online AI master’s: The University of Texas at Austin’s MS in Artificial Intelligence, at $9,990 for 30 credits.
• Median online AI master’s: $32,463 in total tuition.
• Most expensive online AI master’s: Columbia University’s, at $81,000 for 30 credits.
• Cheapest online AI bachelor’s with a listed price: Dakota State University’s, at $44,856 for 120 credits.
• Median online AI bachelor’s: $58,800.

Price is only part of the cost. Some programs add fees, and a part-time pace stretches the timeline, which means more months of tuition and more months before any new job. Each program page lists what the school publishes, so read it before you compare totals.

Our list of the cheapest online AI degrees sorts programs by price, and the online master’s in artificial intelligence list lets you compare the graduate options.

Is the Degree Worth the Cost?

BLS does not report pay by school or by degree, so we can’t claim any program raises your salary. What we can do is put the numbers side by side.

The median master’s total of $32,463 is less than one quarter of a year at the national median salary of $129,180, though that comparison ignores the years of study and the pay you might give up. The cheapest master’s, at $9,990, is less than one month of median pay.

The picture changes with your starting point. If you already earn near the median in IT, a master’s is a bigger bet than if you are moving into the field from lower-paid work. If you have no bachelor’s, the bachelor’s totals above are the relevant ones.

Our guide to whether an AI degree is worth it walks through that comparison with your own numbers. Remember that most AI degrees teach machine learning more than security, so check the course list for security content.

What Are the Limits of This Data?

Four limits are worth stating.

The survey measures wages, not total pay. It does not capture bonuses or stock, and we do not estimate them.

Percentiles include everyone in the occupation. A new analyst and a twenty-year veteran can both sit in the same median.

State figures rest on smaller samples than national ones. In a state with few analysts, a handful of workers can move the mean.

Finally, the numbers describe May 2025. Pay in your market may have moved since then, so treat the figures as a recent snapshot and not a forecast.

None of this makes the data useless. Use it to set a range, then check a few real postings in your city.

What Should You Do With These Numbers?

Use them as a range. Find your state in the table, note the 25th and 75th percentiles, and compare them with what you earn now.

Then price the path. If you need a degree, compare two or three programs on total tuition and on security content. If you already have one, ask whether a program would change the jobs you can apply for, not just your title.

Last, talk to people in the job. Ask what they were hired as, what they earn compared with these figures and what they wish they had learned first. A federal survey cannot tell you what one employer pays, but those conversations can.