Cybersecurity Analyst
Also known as: InfoSec Analyst, Security Analyst, Cyber Analyst
Protect organizations from cyber threats by monitoring systems, analyzing vulnerabilities, and responding to breaches.
Salary Range
The highest-paid specialization or seniority level for cybersecurity analysts.
About 1 in 250 reaches this level
About 192,900 information security analysts in the US (BLS Employment Projections, SOC 15-1212, 2025); only ~500-1,000 large-enterprise CISOs earn $700K+ total comp.
Salary data based on 2025 BLS, Glassdoor, and industry reports. Actual compensation varies by location, experience, and employer.
How to Become One
This career typically requires a bachelor's degree. Here are the top colleges for it:
Cost to Qualify
Four years of tuition and required fees runs about $56K at a typical public college in our list (in-state) and about $288K at a typical private one. Both are pricier than the US national averages (about $48K public in-state, $180K private nonprofit, College Board 2025-26) because our 161-college dataset only includes nationally-ranked schools, not every US college. This excludes room and board, which we show separately on each college's page.
Sticker price, not what most people pay — scholarships, aid and in-state status all move it. Room and board is shown separately on each college's page.
AI Risk Assessment
Cybersecurity is one of the few computer jobs where AI clearly adds work. Every new AI system is something else to protect, and, as ISC2 puts it, AI is "redefining both cybercrime and cybersecurity." BLS projects information security analyst jobs to grow 21% from 2025 to 2035, much faster than the average for all jobs, with about 14,100 openings a year, and it says wider use of AI has increased the need for security. In a 2024 survey of employers for the World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2025, information security analysts were among the 15 fastest-growing jobs to 2030. Security professionals themselves mostly see AI as a tool, not a replacement: in ISC2's 2025 survey of 16,029 cybersecurity workers, 73% said AI will create more specialized cybersecurity skills. ISC2 says AI is changing everyday roles like security operations analyst and incident responder, but this fits the rubric's "2 Low": AI helps, and growing demand absorbs the gains.
The outlook is not as rosy as the old "millions of unfilled jobs" story, and new graduates should know that. ISC2 left its well-known workforce-gap estimate out of its 2025 study, saying the shortage is now about skills rather than headcount. In the same survey, 39% of respondents reported hiring freezes at their organizations and 24% reported cybersecurity layoffs, about the same as in 2024. So the demand is strong but it goes to people with specific skills, and AI and cloud security topped the list of skills teams said they lack.
What would change this score. If AI security tools start doing most of the monitoring and first-response work that entry-level analysts do, and junior hiring falls, this goes to 3. If budgets loosen and ISC2's hiring-freeze and layoff numbers drop, it could reach 1.
Sources
Ratings reflect a 10-year outlook based on 2025-2026 research, weighted toward entry-level impact. Individual outcomes will vary.
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