IT security professionals are well paid and in high demand

If you’re young and want to earn well, I suggest you take up IT as a profession. Salaries in the industry are soaring, according to multiple reports.

Global professional services consultancy Procorre says nearly one sixth (15 percent) of cyber security professionals are paid at least £100,000 a year. The reason behind such a large increase in pay is high demand -- new cyber security roles are making up 14 percent of all new UK-based IT roles. Procorre found that out of 10,210 IT vacancies in the UK, 1,420 are in cyber security.

British universities responded to the increased demand for cyber security experts, with 42 universities offering specialist degrees related to cyber security at an undergraduate level, and more than 700 cyber security related degrees available at postgraduate level.

Now, Oxford University, Royal Holloway, University College London and Warwick University offer Master of Science degrees in areas such as cyber security management, software and systems security, and information security.

Computing.co.uk has done a similar survey and has come to the same conclusion -- IT security is a profession where salaries are growing, fast.

According to Wiktor Podgorski, contracts and HR manager at Procorre, companies are spending time working on strengthening firewalls in-house.

"Many of the businesses that have been hacked over the past few years have lost very sensitive information. Even if the information lost does not put them at personal risk of financial loss, customers lose faith in companies that are unable to keep information secure, so data losses can have a significant long-term impact on sales and revenue", said Podgorski.

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