Security Jobs Hiring Report — June 2026

Key facts

• As of June 2026, there are 1,725 open security roles across 963 companies in the direct-apply dataset.
• Net hiring is positive: +357 net new roles in the last 28 days (890 opened, 533 closed).
• 277 companies posted their first security role in the last 28 days — a wide-open employer base, not just the usual names.
• Only 13% of postings disclose pay; among those that do, the median band is $150,000–$179,000/yr (n=47).
• Engineering dominates: 1,299 of 1,725 roles, with senior-and-up making up the bulk of anything that specifies a level.

The most striking number this month isn't the headline count — it's that 277 companies opened their first security role in the last 28 days. That's more than a quarter of the 963 employers currently hiring entering the security market fresh, at least in this dataset. Security hiring isn't concentrating into a handful of big shops. It's spreading out across the long tail, which changes the math for anyone job-hunting: the household names are not where most of the openings are.

How many security jobs are open right now?

There are 1,725 open security roles across 963 companies as of June 2026. That works out to fewer than two postings per company on average, which tells you the demand is broad and shallow rather than driven by a few teams scaling aggressively. Most employers in the set have one or two seats to fill, not a department to staff.

You can browse the live set on the security jobs page; the figures here are a snapshot of that same data on the day I pulled it.

Is security hiring growing or cooling?

It's growing, and at a healthy clip. Over the trailing 28 days there were 890 roles opened against 533 closed, for a net gain of +357. That's a roughly 1.67-to-1 ratio of opens to closes — well clear of the break-even point where new postings only replace filled or pulled ones.

I read that as genuine expansion rather than churn. When a market is just recycling the same seats, opens and closes track each other closely; here the gap is wide enough that net headcount in security functions is climbing across the companies I track. The 277 first-time posters reinforce that — they're net new demand, not a reshuffling of existing openings.

One caveat I'll own: 28 days is a short window, and a single quarter-end hiring push or a seasonal effect can flatter a snapshot. But the breadth of the employer base — nearly a thousand companies, more than 277 of them brand-new to security hiring — makes this look structural rather than a blip.

Which security roles and seniorities dominate?

Engineering is the job. Of 1,725 roles, 1,299 are engineering — about 75% of everything open. Data analytics is a distant second at 166, followed by a grab-bag "other" category at 163, then operations at 53. Sales (15), legal (10), product (6) and executive (3) barely register.

If you're a security engineer, this is your market. If you're in security operations, GRC, or a non-engineering specialty, the absolute counts are thinner and you'll need to fish in a smaller pond — though 53 operations roles and 166 in data analytics is still real volume across 963 companies.

On seniority, the single biggest bucket is "unspecified" at 827 — nearly half the postings don't state a level at all, which is its own signal about how loosely many of these reqs are written. Of the roles that do specify, senior leads with 621, then principal at 193. Junior is just 35 roles, and director-and-above (director 34, executive 13, VP 2) sits at 49 combined.

The takeaway for candidates is blunt: this is a mid-to-senior market. Junior security postings are scarce — 35 out of 1,725, about 2% — so anyone trying to break in at entry level is competing for a sliver of the openings. The center of gravity is the experienced individual contributor who can land at senior or principal. Leadership seats exist but are rare; if you're chasing a director or VP title, expect a long search.

What do security jobs pay?

Among the minority of postings that disclose pay, the median band is $150,000–$179,000/yr. That figure rests on just 47 postings — only 13% of the set lists a salary at all — so treat it as directional, not gospel.

Narrowing to the role with enough disclosures to mean something, Security Engineer comes in at a median band of $150,000–$180,000/yr across 36 postings. That's consistent with the overall figure, which makes sense given engineering is three-quarters of the market — the Security Engineer band essentially is the headline band.

The honest framing here: with 87% of postings silent on comp, any salary read is built on a self-selected sliver, and companies that disclose tend to be the ones either legally required to or confident their numbers are competitive. The real distribution is almost certainly wider on both ends than 47 datapoints can show. I track what's disclosed over time on the security salaries page; the band has been stable enough that I'd anchor a US-market negotiation around the $150K–$180K range for an experienced engineer and adjust for level, location and stage from there.

Which companies are hiring security fastest?

Nscale leads net hiring over the last 28 days at +9, and all nine of its security roles are currently active — meaning it added those seats and hasn't closed any. For a company moving that fast on a single function, that's worth a look if you want to land somewhere clearly scaling its security team (Nscale).

Behind it, SMX added +6 net and carries the largest active count among the fast movers at 10 open roles — so it's both growing and sitting on the most simultaneous openings of this group. Veeam is at +5 net with 8 active, and Hopper matched the +5 net with a tighter 5 active, which means nearly everything Hopper has open in security is freshly added.

The rest of the leaderboard: SpaceX (+4 net, and notably 12 active — the highest active count in the whole fast-hiring list, so it's both adding and already deep), Eye Security (+4 net, 4 active), Checkout.com (+4 net, 4 active), Perforce (+4 net, 4 active), DigitalOcean (+4 net, 5 active), and Encora (+3 net, 8 active).

A pattern worth flagging: the fastest net movers aren't always the ones with the most open roles. SpaceX has 12 active but a net of +4, suggesting steady turnover alongside additions; Nscale has fewer active seats but added all of them recently, which reads as a team being stood up rather than maintained. If you want to join something on the way up versus something already large, that distinction matters — and it's exactly the kind of thing a static job-board count hides. I keep a running view of who's adding and shedding security roles on the security movers page.

Can you work security remotely?

About 28% of open security roles are remote. That's a meaningful minority but well short of half — security work skews on-site or hybrid, which tracks with how much of it touches regulated environments, physical infrastructure and data that companies prefer to keep inside a badge-controlled building.

Practically, that means roughly seven in ten postings expect you in a location. If remote is a hard requirement for you, you're competing for under 500 of the 1,725 open seats, and you'll want to filter aggressively rather than assume flexibility. The companies hiring fastest here span everything from infrastructure to fintech to aerospace, and the on-site share is heavier at the operations and physical-adjacent end.

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

Yes, if you're a mid-to-senior engineer — this is one of the more candidate-friendly snapshots I've measured. Net hiring is firmly positive, the employer base is broad and growing, and 277 companies just opened their first security role, which means new doors are appearing weekly rather than the same incumbents recycling the same reqs.

The qualifiers are real, though. Entry-level candidates face a thin market — 35 junior roles is not much spread across 963 employers. Non-engineering specialists have fewer absolute openings to chase. And remote-only seekers are working with about 28% of the board. None of that makes the market bad; it makes it specific. The demand is concentrated where the skills are hardest to find, which is exactly where you'd expect a healthy hiring market to put its money.

What should security job seekers do with this?

If you're a security engineer at senior level or above, lead with that — three-quarters of the market is engineering and most of the leveled roles are senior or principal, so you're aiming at the fat part of the distribution. Anchor your comp conversations around the $150K–$180K band the disclosed data supports, and don't be thrown by the 87% of listings that hide pay; ask early.

Look past the obvious names. The fast movers — Nscale, SMX, Veeam, Hopper, SpaceX and the rest — are worth targeting because a team that added headcount in the last month is a team with budget and momentum, and they tend to move faster through a hiring loop. But the 277 first-time posters are where the least-crowded applications are; everyone applies to the recognizable logo, and far fewer find the company that just opened its first security req. If you're early-career or non-engineering, that long tail is your best shot, and on-site flexibility will roughly double the roles you can realistically reach.