Cybersecurity
Staffing Agency
Good cybersecurity people don’t sit on the market. Ten days, sometimes less, and they’re gone. We stay connected with security professionals across the stack so when you need somebody who can actually tell a vulnerability scan from a pen test, we’re not scrambling to fill your role from scratch.
4.8 Million Open Roles. Half a Million in the U.S. Alone.
That’s not a forecast. That’s right now. And if you’ve spent the last year trying to hire a security engineer or even a halfway decent SOC analyst, none of this is news to you.
What might surprise you is why it’s gotten worse. Budget cuts actually overtook talent scarcity as the number one reason companies can’t staff their security teams, according to the ISC2’s 2025 workforce study. Think about that for a second. Companies are slashing security headcount at the exact moment threats are accelerating. Almost 90% of organizations say they’ve got skills gaps on their current security teams. And roughly half of all companies report it takes longer than six months to fill a single cybersecurity vacancy.
Six months.
That’s your attack surface sitting exposed while your existing people burn out trying to cover the gap. We’re not going to pretend that working with a cybersecurity staffing agency magically solves all of this. But having recruiters who actually understand SIEM platforms, zero trust architecture, and why a CISSP alone doesn’t make someone worth hiring? That cuts months off the process. Sometimes it cuts the whole problem in half.
The Numbers Explain Why Your Last Security Hire Took Forever
The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 33% job growth for information security analysts through 2033. Not a typo. Thirty-three percent, in a field where most tech roles grow around 13%.
Meanwhile the talent pool has basically flatlined. The global cybersecurity workforce grew 0.1% from 2023 to 2024. Not ten percent. Not one percent. Zero point one. There are about 1.3 million security professionals working in the U.S. today, which sounds like a big number until you realize companies collectively need something closer to 1.8 million to actually cover what needs covering. Half a million person gap. The math writes itself.
So everybody competes for the same small pool. Salaries climb. Timelines stretch out. And generalist recruiters, the kind who can’t tell a threat hunter from a compliance auditor, just waste everybody’s time for three months sending you resumes from people who listed the word “cybersecurity” on their LinkedIn profile because they took a webinar once.
We’re not saying every company needs a cybersecurity staffing agency. If you’ve got a strong internal talent acquisition team and decent employer brand in the security community, you might do fine on your own for senior hires. But for most mid-market companies? The ones where cybersecurity isn’t the core product? Having recruiters who know what CrowdStrike is and who’ve seen enough Splunk dashboards to know when a job description is attracting the wrong candidates, that shortcut is worth it.
Four Ways to Staff Cybersecurity Roles
Not every security hire should be permanent. And not every project needs a full-time head. Your security needs change faster than most departments, so the engagement model should flex with them.
Contract
Compliance audit coming up? Cloud migration that needs a security review? Incident response surge? Bring somebody in for exactly as long as the work lasts. No awkward conversations about long-term fit when the project wraps in 90 days.
Contract-to-Hire
Security hires are weirdly high stakes compared to most tech roles. A bad fit isn’t just unproductive. It’s a liability. Literally. This model lets you work with someone for a few months before you commit. Most of our clients who go this route end up converting, which tells you the vetting works. The ones who don’t convert? They’re relieved they found out on a trial basis instead of after signing a full offer letter and onboarding someone for six weeks.
Direct Hire
You know you need a permanent CISO, a security architect, a senior engineer. Someone who’ll build institutional knowledge and stay. Our 92% 12-month retention rate reflects the way we vet for culture and motivation, not just technical skill.
Project-Based
SOC buildouts. Zero trust implementations. Pen test engagements where scope matters more than headcount. Some cybersecurity work is finite by nature, and we staff it that way.
Cybersecurity Roles We Actually Fill
Not theoretical. Not aspirational. Every role listed here is one we’ve placed multiple times. Some of them dozens of times. The ones near the top of the list are the roles clients ask for most often.
- Security Operations Center (SOC) Analyst
- Cybersecurity Engineer
- Information Security Analyst
- Penetration Tester / Ethical Hacker
- Security Architect
- Cloud Security Engineer
- DevSecOps Engineer
- Threat Intelligence Analyst
- Incident Response Analyst
- Identity & Access Management (IAM) Engineer
- GRC Analyst (Governance, Risk, Compliance)
- Network Security Engineer
- Application Security Engineer
- CISO / VP of Security (Executive Search)
What Our Recruiters Actually Evaluate
We don’t just run a certification checklist. Frankly, a checklist would be easier to scale, but it wouldn’t catch the things that actually matter. Our people understand the toolchains and frameworks your security team uses every day. Not at a Wikipedia level. At a “they’ve seen this tool break in production” level.
SIEM and Security Operations
Splunk, Microsoft Sentinel, IBM QRadar, CrowdStrike Falcon, Elastic SIEM, Palo Alto Cortex XSOAR. If a candidate says they’ve “worked with” a SIEM but can’t describe a correlation rule they’ve written, that’s a red flag we catch early.
Cloud Security
AWS Security Hub, Azure Defender, GCP Security Command Center, Prisma Cloud, Wiz, Lacework. Cloud security is its own animal now and the people who are good at it are absurdly hard to find.
Offensive Security and Pen Testing
Burp Suite, Metasploit, Kali Linux, Cobalt Strike, Nmap, Nessus, OWASP ZAP. We can tell the difference between somebody who ran a Nessus scan once in a lab and someone who’s done real engagements against production environments.
Identity and Access Management
Okta, Azure AD / Entra ID, CyberArk, SailPoint, Ping Identity, ForgeRock
Compliance Frameworks
NIST CSF, ISO 27001, SOC 2, PCI DSS, HIPAA, FedRAMP, CMMC, GDPR
Certs We Validate
CISSP, CISM, CompTIA Security+, CEH, OSCP, CCSP, CySA+, GIAC (GSEC, GPEN, GCIH), AWS Security Specialty. But honestly? Some of the best security people we’ve placed never bothered with CISSP. They learned by doing, through CTFs and real incident response, not bootcamp PowerPoints.
How This Works in Practice
We don’t post your job on Indeed and pray. That approach fails spectacularly for cybersecurity roles. The best candidates already have three offers. Our process is built around that reality.
We Learn Your Actual Stack
Not a generic intake call where we ask what “cybersecurity tools” you use. We dig in. What SIEM are you running? Is this a greenfield SOC build or are you replacing someone who left? Does this person need to present to the board or live in a terminal? Cybersecurity hiring goes sideways when recruiters skip the specifics, so we don’t skip them.
Candidates in 3 to 5 Days
Not a pile of resumes from people who listed “cybersecurity” on LinkedIn. An actual shortlist of humans who’ve been technically screened against the tools, frameworks, and experience level you described in step one. If we can’t find a strong match that fast (it happens, especially for super niche roles), we’ll tell you straight. We don’t pad shortlists with warm bodies to look productive.
We Stick Around After Placement
The job doesn’t end when somebody accepts. We check in. We make sure it’s working on both sides. Because in cybersecurity, a bad hire isn’t just a wasted fee. It’s a genuine risk to your organization. We’d rather fix a problem at 30 days than let it become a crisis at 90.
Industries We Recruit Cybersecurity Talent For
Security staffing isn’t one-size-fits-all. A Series B fintech building SOC 2 compliance from scratch has completely different needs than a hospital system worried about HIPAA and ransomware. We recruit across all of these, and the approach changes for each one.
- Financial Services and Fintech. Regulatory scrutiny is constant. Breaches make the Wall Street Journal. The security people who thrive here are different from the ones who thrive at a SaaS startup.
- Healthcare and Life Sciences. HIPAA violations are expensive and patient data is one of the most targeted categories in ransomware attacks right now.
- Technology and SaaS. At these companies, security is a product feature. It’s baked into the sales conversation. The talent bar is higher because customers ask about it.
- Government and Defense. Clearances, FedRAMP, CMMC. This is a world unto itself and the candidates who work in cleared environments rarely overlap with the commercial talent pool.
- Manufacturing and Industrial. OT/ICS security used to be an afterthought. It isn’t anymore. Not after Colonial Pipeline. Not after the wave of attacks on manufacturing in 2024 and 2025.
- Retail and E-Commerce. PCI DSS compliance, transaction fraud, massive data volumes. These companies need security people who also understand the business.
Why Companies Choose KORE1 for Cybersecurity Staffing
Our Recruiters Speak Security
They have technical backgrounds. They understand the gap between a vulnerability assessment and a pen test, between a compliance program and a threat-driven one. When they screen candidates, they’re testing real depth. Not whether someone can spell CISSP on a resume. Is that a little blunt? Probably. But you’ve wasted time with recruiters who couldn’t tell the difference. That’s why you’re reading this page.
14 Days Average. Not 6 Months.
The industry average for filling a cybersecurity role is over six months. Ours is 14 days. We move fast because we’ve already built the relationships. When your SOC is short-staffed and your team is drowning in alerts, speed matters more than almost anything else.
People Stay
92% of our cybersecurity placements are still with the same client a year later. I know that sounds like a sales pitch. It’s also just true. Turnover in security is brutal and expensive. Every time a security engineer walks out, they take institutional knowledge about your specific environment, your threat model, your weird legacy systems that nobody documented properly. We screen for fit because we’ve seen what happens when agencies don’t bother.
The Whole Spectrum
Entry-level SOC analysts. Mid-career engineers. C-suite security executives. Contract gigs and permanent placements. Your needs aren’t simple and we don’t pretend they are.
Salary Data That’s Actually Current
We share real numbers. Not recycled data from a 2023 report. Not ranges so wide they’re useless. Actual current market rates broken down by role, experience level, and region. Because losing your top candidate over a $10K gap in comp is a preventable mistake, and it happens all the time when companies rely on outdated benchmarks.
Part of a Bigger IT Practice
Cybersecurity staffing is one piece of our broader IT staffing services operation. That matters because security doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The people we place work alongside your DevOps, cloud, and AI/ML teams. We understand those dynamics because we staff all of those functions too.
2026 Cybersecurity Salary Guide
These numbers come from current market data across our placements and public salary sources. They move fast in cybersecurity. If you’re benchmarking roles that need clearances or really niche skills, just ask us for custom data. It’s free.
| Role | Mid-Level (3–5 yrs) | Senior (5+ yrs) |
|---|---|---|
| SOC Analyst | $95K – $120K | $120K – $150K |
| Cybersecurity Engineer | $120K – $155K | $150K – $195K |
| Penetration Tester | $110K – $140K | $140K – $180K |
| Cloud Security Engineer | $130K – $165K | $160K – $210K |
| Security Architect | $145K – $180K | $175K – $230K |
| DevSecOps Engineer | $130K – $170K | $160K – $210K |
| CISO / VP Security | $200K – $350K+ (swings wildly by org size and industry) | |
Cleared roles and fintech positions often pay 15 to 25% above these ranges. Location, certifications, and clearance level all shift the numbers. We can pull custom benchmarks for your specific situation.
Let’s Talk About Your Security Team
Whether you need one incident response analyst or you’re building a SOC from scratch, the cybersecurity talent market isn’t getting easier. But working with a cybersecurity staffing agency that genuinely understands the field? That makes a measurable difference. We’re not going to oversell it beyond that.
Frequently Asked Questions
What makes KORE1 different from other cybersecurity staffing agencies?
Technical depth. That’s the honest answer.
Most staffing firms treat cybersecurity like any other IT job. They match keywords on resumes to keywords in job descriptions. And it works, kind of, for roles where the bar is lower. But cybersecurity? The gap between someone who’s “worked with” Splunk and someone who’s actually built detection rules in it is enormous. Our recruiters catch that difference because they understand the work.
92% 12-month retention. 14-day average time-to-hire. Those numbers come from recruiters who know what they’re recruiting for, not from a bigger resume database.
How fast can you deliver qualified cybersecurity candidates?
First shortlist in 3 to 5 business days. Average hire in 14 days.
For genuinely urgent situations, like an active incident or a compliance deadline that’s breathing down your neck, we can compress that. We’ve done same-week placements for IR roles. It’s not the norm, but we can move when you need us to. The speed comes from relationships we’ve already built, not from cold outreach on LinkedIn.
What certifications and technical skills do you screen for?
Depends entirely on the role.
A security architect? We want to see CISSP and deep framework experience with NIST or ISO 27001. A pen tester? OSCP carries more weight than anything else in that world. SOC analyst? Hands-on SIEM experience plus something like CompTIA CySA+ or Security+.
But we don’t stop at certificates. Plenty of talented security people learned through real incident response, CTF competitions, and years of on-the-job problem solving. We’ve placed people with zero formal certs who were hands-down better than candidates with a stack of acronyms after their name. We evaluate whether someone can do the work. The piece of paper is secondary.
Do you place cybersecurity people at startups or just big enterprises?
Both. A lot of both, actually.
The hiring profiles are completely different though. A Series A startup needs a security generalist who can set up the first SIEM, write policies, handle vendor risk assessments, and still have bandwidth to review the app for vulnerabilities. One person doing five jobs. Startups can’t afford to hire specialists in every domain yet.
Enterprises need the opposite. Their own threat intelligence analyst. An IAM engineer who lives inside Okta. A cloud security architect who’s built security across AWS, Azure, and GCP. We recruit for both, and honestly the sourcing strategy is different for each one. The generalists and the deep specialists don’t usually hang out in the same talent pools.
What do cybersecurity professionals earn in 2026?
Wide range. Entry-level SOC analysts start around $75K to $95K. Mid-career cybersecurity engineers land between $120K and $160K depending on where they are and what they know. Senior security architects and CISOs? $175K all the way up past $350K at bigger organizations.
The biggest salary multipliers are specialization, clearance status, and cloud platform expertise. A cloud security engineer with AWS Security Specialty and three or four years of real experience will out-earn a generalist security analyst by $40K or more. Cleared roles in defense and government add another $20K to $25K on top of whatever the market rate is.
We maintain current salary benchmarks and can pull custom data for your roles. No charge for that.
Can you help with cleared cybersecurity positions?
Yes. Secret, Top Secret, TS/SCI.
Getting someone cleared from scratch takes 12 to 18 months, which is basically useless when you need someone now. So for clients with clearance requirements, the only real option is finding people who already hold active clearances. And that talent pool is tiny. These people know exactly what their clearance is worth. They’re almost never actively job hunting on public boards.
Our network includes passive candidates in the cleared space that we’ve built relationships with over years. Not weeks. Not through mass InMail campaigns. If you need cleared cybersecurity talent, talk to us before you spend four months getting nowhere with generalist recruiters.