Q. Where can I get info on international pay salaries for security professionals? I have the Council's compensation book and the ASIS salary survey information but they cover North America.
A. Unfortunately, I am not aware of any public survey that is specific to security and compliance positions. Conducting an international survey would be significantly challenging, due to a number of factors. The international community, as you know, is very large, so where do you start - perhaps Europe, Asia, or the Middle East to name a few regions. Once the region is identified, there are a host of additional challenges to navigate through, e.g., the different employment laws of each country that affect salaries, currency conversions, the number of potential companies that are willing to participate, to name a few. For example, a survey for Western Europe would include more than 25 different countries with 25 varying employment laws, 12 or so different currencies and, most importantly, many may have companies that do not want to respond or submit information.
There is probably information out there, but I would suspect that for security specific positions the survey would be “custom” or company sponsored and not available to the general public. For a survey company to consider conducting an international survey specific to security positions, it would probably be necessary to secure a “sponsor” company to defray the initial costs.
There are some general international surveys that would encompass many different job families, such as sales/marketing, manufacturing, finance, human resources, etc., which may include a token security position. However, as far as I know, there is nothing specific to the security function.
Answer provided by Steve Walker, Subject Matter Expert Faculty, Security Executive Council.
Editor's note: The Council's book Security Careers can be found in the Leadership Store.
