Security Jobs Hiring Report — July 2026

Key facts

• As of July 2026, there are 1,827 open security roles across 1,007 companies in the direct-apply dataset.
• Hiring grew a net +107 roles in the last 28 days — 733 postings opened against 626 closed.
• 214 companies posted their first-ever security role in the last 28 days, a real pipeline of new demand.
• Only 16% of postings disclose pay; among those that do, the median band is $150k–$180k USD/yr (n=55).
• EverAI added +21 net roles in 28 days, the single fastest-hiring board in the set.

The most striking number this month isn't the 1,827 open roles — it's the 214 companies that posted their first security role in the last four weeks. That's more than a fifth of the entire hiring pool showing up brand new. Security hiring isn't concentrating into a handful of big buyers; it's spreading out to companies that previously had nobody dedicated to it, or at least nobody they were posting for publicly.

Net growth of +107 over 28 days is modest but positive, and the shape underneath it matters more than the headline. With 733 opened and 626 closed, this is a market that's churning hard — roles are filling or getting pulled almost as fast as new ones appear. That's not a hiring freeze and it's not a boom. It's a working market where the supply of openings turns over roughly every few weeks.

How many security jobs are open right now?

There are 1,827 open security roles across 1,007 companies as of July 2026. That works out to fewer than two openings per company on average, which tells you most of these employers are hiring one or two security people, not building out large teams. The exceptions — the companies genuinely scaling security headcount — are worth watching, and I'll get to them below.

If you want to browse the live set yourself, it sits on the security jobs board. The figures here are a snapshot; the board moves daily.

Is security hiring growing or cooling?

It's growing, slowly, and broadening fast. The +107 net over 28 days is the growth part — small in absolute terms against a base of 1,827, call it around a 6% monthly net expansion if the pace held, which it rarely does cleanly. The broadening is the more interesting story: 214 first-time posters against 1,007 total companies means the demand isn't coming mostly from repeat buyers doubling down. It's coming from new entrants.

What I read into that: security is becoming a line-one hire for companies that didn't have it before, and a lot of those are smaller or newer operations. When a company posts its first security role, it usually wants a generalist who can own the whole function — which lines up with what the seniority data shows.

Which roles and seniority levels dominate?

Engineering owns this market completely: 1,362 of 1,827 roles, roughly three in four. Everything else is a rounding error by comparison — data analytics at 187, a catch-all "other" bucket at 162, operations at 76. Sales, legal, product and executive security roles together barely clear 30 postings. If you're a security engineer, this is your dataset. If you're anything else in security, the field narrows considerably.

On seniority, the biggest single bucket is "unspecified" at 891 — nearly half — which is a data-quality caveat as much as a signal. Plenty of these postings simply don't put a level in the title, and a fair share of the unspecified pile is probably mid-to-senior. Of the roles that do state a level, senior dominates at 661, with principal at 186. Junior sits at just 38.

That junior number is the one to sit with if you're early in your career. Thirty-eight explicitly junior openings across 1,007 companies is thin. Security continues to hire like a field that wants people who've already done the job somewhere else — the entry door is narrow, and much of the demand assumes you arrive knowing how to own a control, run an incident, or stand up a program without a lot of hand-holding. Add director (37), executive (12) and VP (2) and you get a leadership tier that exists but is small; most hiring is squarely in the individual-contributor senior band.

What do security jobs pay?

Among the 16% of postings that disclose pay, the median band is $150,000–$180,000 USD/yr. That's the honest headline, and the honest caveat is right next to it: 84% of postings don't disclose anything, so this median rests on a sample of 55. Treat it as directional, not gospel.

Drill into the one role with enough disclosed data to stand on its own — Security Engineer — and the median band is $160,000–$190,000 (n=39). That's a step above the all-roles median, which fits the picture: security engineering is the bulk of the market and the better-paid slice of it. For a fuller breakdown as more postings disclose, I keep the numbers updated on security salaries.

One practical note on the disclosure gap. The companies that do publish bands skew toward US-based employers subject to pay-transparency rules, so the disclosed median is probably pulled upward relative to the true global market. If you're outside the US, or applying to a company that doesn't post a band, anchor your expectations below that $150k–$180k line rather than at it.

Which companies are hiring security fastest?

EverAI leads by a wide margin, adding +21 net roles in 28 days from a standing start — all 21 of its active security roles are new. When a single company's net additions are a fifth of the entire market's net growth, that's not noise. You can see the full board on the EverAI page. Whatever it's building, it's staffing a security team fast enough to skew the monthly totals by itself.

After EverAI the pace drops off sharply. iFood added +7 (7 active), Cwsc +6, and Fluidstack +5 (6 active). Then a cluster at +4 net: Mistral AI (4 active), SpaceX (16 active), and Assystinc (4 active). Higgsfield AI, OpenAI and Twilio round out the top ten at +3 each.

A pattern jumps out of that list. AI companies are strongly represented — EverAI, Mistral AI, Higgsfield AI, OpenAI — and several are building security teams essentially from zero this month. SpaceX and OpenAI are the two names carrying real existing depth (16 and 15 active roles respectively) rather than a burst of first hires. The takeaway for a job seeker: the fastest-growing boards right now are AI companies and a couple of infrastructure/space names, and many of them are hiring their first security people, which usually means broad-mandate roles rather than narrow specializations.

If you want to track how this reshuffles week to week, the security movers page shows who's opening and closing roles over time — more useful than any single monthly snapshot for spotting a company that's about to scale.

Is this a good time to look for a security job?

If you're a mid-to-senior security engineer, yes — this is a favorable market. Three-quarters of open roles are engineering, senior is the dominant stated level, the disclosed pay is strong, and 214 new companies just entered the hiring pool. The demand is there and it's spreading to employers who didn't previously compete for you.

If you're junior, it's harder, and I'd rather tell you that than dress it up. Thirty-eight explicitly junior roles is a scarce set, and a market that leans this heavily on senior and principal hiring is a market optimizing for people who can operate independently. The realistic path in is often lateral — coming from software engineering, IT, or infrastructure into a first security-adjacent role — rather than applying straight into a "junior security" title that mostly isn't being posted.

Remote is a mixed bag. At 29%, roughly three in ten roles are remote, which means the clear majority still expect you on-site or hybrid. That's worth planning around: if remote is a hard requirement for you, you're competing for under a third of the board, and you should weight your search toward the companies that explicitly offer it rather than assuming flexibility.

What the data can't tell you

A few honest limits. The 891 unspecified-seniority roles mean I can't give you a clean level distribution — nearly half the market didn't state a level, so read the senior/principal split as a floor on real demand, not a full count. The pay figures rest on 16% disclosure, so the medians are indicative. And the function buckets lump a lot into "engineering" and "other" — a security engineer, a detection engineer and an application-security specialist all land in the same 1,362 without further splitting in this cut.

What the data does capture cleanly is direction and specificity: who opened roles, who closed them, which companies are net-adding, and what the disclosed bands actually say. That's first-party, measured daily from company boards, which is why the company-level detail here holds up where a scraped aggregate wouldn't.

The takeaway for job seekers

Point your search at security engineering — it's 75% of the market and the best-paid slice, with disclosed bands running $160k–$190k for Security Engineer specifically. Prioritize the fast movers: EverAI is hiring a full team from scratch right now, and the AI cluster (Mistral, Higgsfield, OpenAI) plus infrastructure names like Fluidstack and SpaceX are where net growth is actually happening this month. Apply early there, because those first-hire roles fill or get restructured quickly.

Two tactical points. Don't wait for a posted salary — 84% of roles show none, so go in with a number anchored slightly below the $150k–$180k median and let disclosed comps from the salaries page back you up. And if you're junior, target companies posting their first security role: they need a generalist and are more open to someone growing into the mandate than a team hiring a fifth specialist. The doors are there this month — most of them just aren't labeled "entry level."