If you are looking into security careers, you are likely wondering how much exactly you will be able to make if you are employed as a security professional. The income of security guards can vary significantly, depending on your level of responsibility, your experience and your location. Knowing the factors that contribute towards your wage means you can give yourself the best shot possible towards getting to your full earning potential. When you start out, you will find you are not earning much above minimum wage. Many new security guards earn something like $12 per hour, meaning their annual starting salary is around $15,000 per year (or sometimes even less) at this stage.

As you become more experienced, your earning potential will grow. Experience is one of the biggest contributing factors towards how much you can earn as a security professional, especially since security guards tend not to have ranks and don’t formally progress through the profession by moving up in rank/job title (meaning that gaining experience is, instead, how one progresses in the profession). Those who have been in the profession the longest almost always earn a salary towards the highest end of the scale. The average salary for all security professionals is somewhere around $23,000 per year. Those who have been in the job for the longest often exceed this and can earn as much as $32,000 per year and over. Aside from experience, where you work can greatly influence how much you are able to earn as a security guard. Different employers offer different levels of pay. Working for a large security firm often means getting better pay than working for a smaller one, for example. Where you work and how much responsibility you have on the job tie together closely.

If you have a position as a security guard at high risk establishment (therefore need to be armed), your pay is likely to be higher than if the work doesn’t require you to be armed. Armed security guards almost always earn significantly more than those who are not armed. One of the best paying and fastest growing types of security guard is that of gaming surveillance officers. Because gambling is something that is become legal in more states, casinos are becoming more common. Gaming surveillance can pay very well, since the owners of casinos are serious about losing money – and it is one of the fastest growing areas of the security guard profession. The most highly paid security guards in this area can expect to receive a salary of as much as $35,000 per year. Hospitals and schools also pay their security guards well, with their average pay being somewhere around the $24,000 per year mark.