News Poll: The struggle to get boots on the ground

YARMOUTH, Maine — The security industry is hungry for new faces to fill its workforce, according to SSN’s most recent news poll, and as demand for security services grows, the question among employers is how to fill those roles with the appropriate talent. 

A vast majority of poll respondents concur that there’s demand for new hires in various segments of the security industry, with 40% saying there’s extremely high demand that they’re struggling to fulfill, and another 40% hiring but managing to meet a steady pace of workers. 

In cybersecurity alone there was a job vacancy of 750,000 positions in 2024, and a projected increase of 32% for those jobs between 2023 and 2033, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  

Their biggest challenge may be finding the right people to fill those roles, however, as 80% of respondents said that there was a lack of qualified candidates with the necessary certifications, and 20% said they had difficulty offering competitive wages and benefits. As an example, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the median pay for a security analyst in 2024 was $124,910 per year, or $60.05 per hour. SecuritySpecifiers also recently established the CONSULT Scholarship program in partnership with the Security Industry Association (SIA) to help develop a new generation of security consultants.  

It's personnel on the front line that has proven to be the biggest cause for concern to hiring parties in the industry, however, as two-thirds of respondents said the hardest roles to fill are field technicians and installers. The remaining one-third are split evenly between monitoring center staff and sales.  

“The industry is highly specialized and requires specific technical skills and knowledge, such as understanding of fire codes and regulations, alarm systems and access control systems,” SIA wrote in a guide designed to help businesses recruit technicians. “This means that finding qualified candidates who possess these skills and knowledge can be difficult.” 

SIA also cited a lack of awareness for career opportunities for prospective candidates and a wave of retirements causing knowledge gaps to develop at organizations.