Average CISSP salary [updated 2022]
The Certified Information Systems Security Professional, or CISSP, is a cybersecurity management certification. It is intended for experienced information security professionals and verifies that the cert holder has cybersecurity program design, implementation, and management knowledge. The knowledge that it certifies puts you on the footing of cybersecurity and IT management and may help open doors to those higher-level job roles.
CISSP is known for helping certification holders bring home a respectable average salary. With that said, you may be wondering what this average salary is. This article will summarize the CISSP requirements and explore the CISSP average salary for 2022 and factors that influence your earnings, such as your location and job role.
CISSP requirements
To earn the CISSP certification, you need to satisfy the requirements established by the cert’s hosting organization, ISC2. First, you will need to pass the CISSP certification exam. This exam covers eight domains of knowledge. You can find more information on the domains on Infosec’s CISSP exam hub and the ISC2 CISSP Exam Outline.
The second requirement is to have at least five years of cumulative, paid work experience in 2 or more of the 8 domains of knowledge of the CISSP common body of knowledge. If you don’t have this level of experience and still want to earn this certification, it is possible. You can earn the CISSP associate certification, which buys you some time (6 years) to earn the requisite years of experience.
Please note that the CISSP certification exam was most recently updated in 2021. If you plan to use study materials that pre-date May of 2021, you will need to update your study materials to stay on top of the most up-to-date exam material.
CISSP average salary for 2022
You are likely reading this because you want to know how much you can expect to earn as an average salary if you hold the CISSP cert. As much as I would like to say we can get this information from one source, it will take an analysis of some different sources and a little mathematics to get to the most accurate average CISSP salary. Below, we will look at the most up-to-date numbers available at the time of writing.
PayScale
According to PayScale, CISSP certification holders will take home an average annual salary of $119,000 in 2022.
ZipRecruiter
ZipRecuriter reports that in 2022, CISSP cert holders can expect to earn an average salary of $125,470 per year.
SimpliLearn
According to SimpliLearn, you will make an average annual salary of $116,573 if you have your CISSP certification.
While we don’t have just one answer here, we can use this information to calculate an even more accurate average salary. If you average the salaries above, you will get $120,347.67. This is a respectable salary and even more so for a professional with just five years of work experience.
CISSP average salary based upon location
The average salary number provided above is an average across the entire United States. For information security salaries, one strong influence on how much you will earn is where you live in the country. As you would suspect, the average salary for a CISSP certification holder will be higher in a large metropolitan area or an area associated with the tech sector, such as New York or Silicon Valley. The numbers prove this assumption. Below are the average salaries you can expect to earn as a CISSP certification holder:
| City | Annual Salary |
| San Mateo, CA | $158,415 |
| Berkely, CA | $153,311 |
| Daly City, CA | $152,885 |
| Richmond, CA | $148,326 |
| Stamford, CT | $144,432 |
| Bellevue, WA | $144,066 |
| Brooklyn, NY | $142,071 |
| San Francisco, CA | $141,304 |
| New Haven, CT | $140,813 |
| Lakes, AK | $140,368 |
As you can see, there are many areas of the United States where you can earn a significant amount more than the national average salary as a CISSP cert holder. Not only that, but the spread of the salaries presented above is more than minimal, over $18,000 just in the locations above. With that said, keep in mind that in many locales you will learn less than the national average we calculated earlier.
CISSP average salary based upon job role
Another influencing factor on how much you can expect to make as a CISSP cert holder is the job role that you work. In some ways it can have as much of an effect on what you earn as the location where you live. Below are examples of average salaries of CISSP cert holders based on job role:
| Job Role | Average Salary |
| Information Security Manager | $123,063 |
| Cyber Security Engineer | $113,408 |
| Cyber Security Analyst | $96,117 |
| Information Security Analyst | $96,117 |
| Chief Information Security Officer | $173,462 |
| Security Engineer | $106,939 |
| Security Architect, IT | $134,174 |
Conclusion
CISSP is an information security certification for management focused professionals with at least five years of relevant work experience. The average salary for a CISSP certification holder in 2022 is over $120,000 per year. This average salary is influenced by factors such as where you live and what job role you are working. How,ever any way you slice it, earning the CISSP will give your average salary a healthy boost.
Thinking of earning the CISSP for yourself? Try Infosec’s CISSP boot camp and reach your goal easier and faster!
This post has been updated continuously – first posted Oct. 2013. For more on the CISSP certification, view our CISSP certification hub.
Sources
- Salary for Certification: Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP).
- CISSP Salary.
- Average Annual Salary of a CISSP Certified Professional in 2022.
This is a great article! I will look into the CISSP certification. Something tells me I will find something of great interest here.
Wow sexist much? I am a female Network Architect with over 20 years of experience. I have had to teach my male equals, with higher salaries, many simple concepts that they should’ve been embarrassed to ask. To say that females who hold a CISSP on average have less competence is offensive. I have interviewed a male engineer proclaiming to have a CCNP that advised me the a /24 was the smallest subnet mask there is, I have instructed a male CCIE how to perform route look ups, and I have designed & provided complex networks solutions for multiple customers. I will agree that there are few women in the network and security sectors, but I know some strong engineers that are more than competent and are female.
Wow- bubblehead much? Apparently in those twenty years you still haven’t figured out what ‘on average’ means.
Dear, “A female Engineer” – I am a female NON-engineer, and I think you are AWESOME. I love your reply to whatshisface and just wanted to share that with you. Have a great day!