1. Stanford University
Stanford, CA • Private
In-State Tuition
$51,354
Enrollment
7,083
Senior security architects' whole careers revolve around cybersecurity. More often than not, they build systems from the ground up, engineering complex code and algorithms. As the senior team member, they are also in charge of leading their team and mentoring junior engineers.
Most employers require their senior security architects to at least have a college diploma. We found that employed American senior security architects commonly hold degrees in computer science, computer systems security, and management information systems. Because this is such a high-skill job, many candidates take more time to hone their skills by pursuing a master's degree in those fields.
Senior security architects in the United States earn an average yearly salary of roughly about $141,000. That's more or less $68 an hour. Suppose you want to cash in a bigger paycheck. In that case, you might want to look for employers that offer more competitive salaries like Bloomberg and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, which pay $151,000 or more to their senior security architects on average.
There are certain skills that many senior security architects have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed analytical skills, detail oriented and problem-solving skills.
If you're interested in becoming a senior security architect, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 66.1% of senior security architects have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 19.0% of senior security architects have master's degrees. Even though most senior security architects have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
As you move along in your career, you may start taking on more responsibilities or notice that you've taken on a leadership role. Using our career map, a senior security architect can determine their career goals through the career progression. For example, they could start out with a role such as security director, progress to a title such as operations director and then eventually end up with the title senior director of information & technology.
What Am I Worth?
The role of a senior security architect includes a wide range of responsibilities. These responsibilities can vary based on an individual's specific job, company, or industry.Here are some general senior security architect responsibilities:
There are several types of senior security architect, including:
From designing to planning, architects have a hand in houses, factories, office buildings and other structures. Working from an office, architects spend their days developing plans for such structures and meet with clients to ensure their dream is being carried out.
While it all sounds like fun and games, you do need a good amount of education and experience to be able to become an architect. A bachelor's degree is step one. Then you need experience through a paid internship. Before accepting a job offer, you even need to pass the Architect Registration Examination.
Information Security Analysts are responsible for creating security systems to ensure the information stored on a company's network is inaccessible to cyber attacks. They contribute to creating safety regulations and see to it that safety standards are maintained.
As an information security analyst, your job will be to monitor computer networks, install security software, and create documentation of any potential risks to security you detect. Your job will be to inform your colleagues on up to date security processes and perform tests to make sure networks and data are sufficiently protected.
Firewalls, antivirus scanning, proxies, and intrusion detection systems will be your best friends on the job. You will need a degree in computer science or a related field and previous experience on the job to land this position.
Typically, a Securities Analyst, also known as a financial analyst, researches and, of course, analyses various companies for their clients, attempting to understand how secure the companies are on the market and in trade, if and how much they grow, and how much they might earn going forward. An Analyst might perform this research only on the company they were hired by, thus evaluating what kind of a danger their client might be in, and giving them a rough idea of the road ahead.
More often than not, a Securities Analyst entering the field is expected to have at least a Bachelor's in Computer Science, Programming, or so on, as well as one to five years of experience in a role closely related to this one.
Mouse over a state to see the number of active senior security architect jobs in each state. The darker areas on the map show where senior security architects earn the highest salaries across all 50 states.
Rank | State | Number of Jobs | Average Salary |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Texas | 5,149 | $120,046 |
2 | New York | 3,349 | $149,675 |
3 | Illinois | 3,250 | $120,980 |
4 | Pennsylvania | 2,956 | $133,346 |
5 | California | 2,399 | $144,680 |
6 | Georgia | 2,362 | $113,395 |
7 | North Carolina | 2,347 | $130,523 |
8 | New Jersey | 2,184 | $130,382 |
9 | Ohio | 2,081 | $123,972 |
10 | Florida | 1,976 | $107,200 |
11 | Washington | 1,786 | $155,077 |
12 | Virginia | 1,661 | $114,159 |
13 | Minnesota | 1,579 | $116,370 |
14 | Maryland | 1,525 | $109,081 |
15 | Arizona | 1,383 | $122,367 |
16 | Michigan | 1,371 | $122,593 |
17 | Missouri | 1,225 | $108,438 |
18 | Indiana | 1,134 | $114,301 |
19 | Colorado | 1,095 | $116,987 |
20 | Tennessee | 1,011 | $113,907 |
21 | Wisconsin | 982 | $127,594 |
22 | Alabama | 847 | $116,174 |
23 | Connecticut | 829 | $115,182 |
24 | Massachusetts | 702 | $133,185 |
25 | South Carolina | 683 | $117,845 |
26 | Kentucky | 599 | $119,055 |
27 | Oregon | 554 | $140,912 |
28 | Iowa | 541 | $114,687 |
29 | Nevada | 493 | $129,130 |
30 | Kansas | 467 | $114,540 |
31 | Oklahoma | 464 | $113,626 |
32 | Louisiana | 462 | $115,638 |
33 | Arkansas | 423 | $116,810 |
34 | Mississippi | 419 | $114,498 |
35 | Nebraska | 413 | $115,213 |
36 | New Hampshire | 354 | $113,991 |
37 | New Mexico | 339 | $122,325 |
38 | Idaho | 307 | $124,225 |
39 | Utah | 291 | $141,495 |
40 | Delaware | 288 | $122,000 |
41 | West Virginia | 238 | $121,872 |
42 | Montana | 235 | $115,445 |
43 | North Dakota | 225 | $109,024 |
44 | Rhode Island | 210 | $129,281 |
45 | Maine | 209 | $120,835 |
46 | Alaska | 192 | $123,841 |
47 | South Dakota | 149 | $110,564 |
48 | Hawaii | 141 | $122,708 |
49 | Wyoming | 114 | $117,610 |
50 | Vermont | 99 | $124,396 |
Stanford, CA • Private
In-State Tuition
$51,354
Enrollment
7,083
Philadelphia, PA • Private
In-State Tuition
$55,584
Enrollment
10,764
Evanston, IL • Private
In-State Tuition
$54,568
Enrollment
8,451
Los Angeles, CA • Private
In-State Tuition
$56,225
Enrollment
19,548
Bakersfield, CA • Private
In-State Tuition
$7,309
Enrollment
9,142
Vestal, NY • Private
In-State Tuition
$9,808
Enrollment
13,990
San Diego, CA • Private
In-State Tuition
$7,488
Enrollment
30,018
Boston, MA • Private
In-State Tuition
$53,948
Enrollment
17,238
New York, NY • Private
In-State Tuition
$51,828
Enrollment
26,339
Worcester, MA • Private
In-State Tuition
$50,530
Enrollment
4,571
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 8.1% of senior security architects listed cloud security on their resume, but soft skills such as analytical skills and detail oriented are important as well.
Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Senior Security Architect templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Senior Security Architect resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.
After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:
1. Introduction to Cybersecurity
Explore the fundamental building blocks of cybersecurity. Learn how networks handle routing, DNS, load-balancing, and more. Learn the Linux operating system, and review programming and APIs. Start building cloud infrastructure...
2. Security Governance & Compliance
Students are introduced to the field of cyber security with a focus on the domain of security & risk management. Topics include the fundamental concepts and goals of cybersecurity (the CIA triad), security governance design, the NIST cybersecurity framework, relevant laws and regulations, and the roles of policies, strategies, and procedures in cybersecurity governance...
3. AWS Fundamentals: Addressing Security Risk
Welcome to AWS Fundamentals: Addressing Security Risk! This course will give you an overview of security best practices when developing and managing applications on AWS. The course, created by AWS experts and delivered by AWS Solutions Architects, uses video lectures, hands-on exercise guides, demonstrations, and quizzes to dive deep on concepts about security on AWS. You will learn about the concept of “least privilege” and the AWS Shared Responsibility Model, as well as view demonstrations of...
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a senior security architect. The best states for people in this position are Washington, New York, California, and Utah. Senior security architects make the most in Washington with an average salary of $155,077. Whereas in New York and California, they would average $149,675 and $144,680, respectively. While senior security architects would only make an average of $141,495 in Utah, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. Washington
$155,077
Avg. Salary
2. New York
$149,675
Avg. Salary
3. Pennsylvania
$133,346
Avg. Salary
We've made finding a great employer to work for easy by doing the hard work for you. We looked into employers that employ senior security architects and discovered their number of senior security architect opportunities and average salary. Through our research, we concluded that Bank of America was the best, especially with an average salary of $117,270. NVIDIA follows up with an average salary of $145,217, and then comes FireEye with an average of $127,510. In addition, we know most people would rather work from home. So instead of having to change careers, we identified the best employers for remote work as a senior security architect. The employers include U.S. Bank, Oracle, and Sysco
Rank | Company | Average Salary | Hourly Rate | Job Openings |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Bloomberg | $153,073 | $73.59 | 4 |
2 | Microsoft | $145,601 | $70.00 | 4 |
3 | NVIDIA | $145,217 | $69.82 | 11 |
4 | Motion Recruitment | $140,193 | $67.40 | 6 |
5 | Hewlett Packard Enterprise | $137,090 | $65.91 | 4 |
6 | Salesforce | $134,533 | $64.68 | 5 |
7 | Akamai Technologies | $132,889 | $63.89 | 5 |
8 | Staples | $132,268 | $63.59 | 3 |
9 | Unisys | $129,852 | $62.43 | 3 |
10 | AT&T | $129,755 | $62.38 | 8 |