Info Security Hiring Future Looks Bright

Yet again, information security is being touted as one of the most lucrative fields of tech employment.

The (ISC)2 – the organization that offers popular security certifications such as CISSP, CSSLP, CAP and SSCP – recently released a report stating that more than half of the IT security pros it surveyed across the globe received a salary increase in 2009.

Meanwhile, fewer than 11 percent of respondents saw their salaries and/or benefits cut, and fewer than five percent were laid off.

Of the respondents who said they were responsible for hiring, more than half cited plans to take on more permanent and/or contract employees this year. And 40 percent of those who planned to hire said they would employ three or more new information security pros in 2010 – a huge jump from the 13.1 percent of respondents in that category who said the same thing last year.

According to the survey, here are the top five skills sought by companies planning to hire IT security pros this year:

• operations security;
• access control systems and methodology;
• information risk management;
• applications and system development security; and
• security architecture and models.