Security teams protect systems and data, from detecting and responding to incidents to reviewing designs and meeting compliance standards. Certifications carry more weight here than in most engineering families.
We analyzed 374 U.S. job descriptions from 132 employers for Security roles. The most requested skills were Python (30%), Incident response (27%) and AWS (24%).
2,797open U.S. roles tracked
5 yearstypical experience asked for
$191,500median advertised pay, from 491 roles that state it
Languages
Python30%
Java10%
Go9%
C++9%
Security
Incident response27%
CISSP20%
NIST18%
Threat modeling17%
Identity and access13%
SIEM11%
Penetration testing9%
Cloud & infrastructure
AWS24%
Azure16%
Google Cloud16%
CI/CD15%
Linux11%
Kubernetes11%
Networking8%
Distributed systems7%
Finance & legal
Regulatory compliance13%
AI & machine learning
LLMs11%
Machine learning6%
Product & design
Agile7%
Project management6%
Business tools
Excel6%
Updated November 7, 2026, using job descriptions collected since September 25, 2026. Shares show how many of the sampled descriptions mention a skill, so a low share can still be a firm requirement in the roles that list it. We sample a limited number of descriptions per employer so that no single company dominates, and we only report figures backed by several employers. Advertised pay comes from a different group of roles than H1B filings, so the two are not directly comparable.
