Blue Team Hiring Snapshot: October 2026 by the Numbers
I know that IT sector having a hard time. But today, I wanna share our numbers and statistics about everything in October 2026.
Firstly, we had 383 blue team jobs. Only 10 of them for beginners.
That’s what we found when we counted every open blue team job on our board on October 30, 2026. The jobs came from 105 employers, and we pulled each one from the company’s own careers page.
We tagged every job by role, level, pay, clearance and the certs it asks for. Here’s the October 2026 picture, starting with the number that surprised us most.
The headline: 10 true entry-level jobs out of 383
Only 21 of the 383 jobs were entry level. That’s 5%.
And 11 of those 21 were internships. Take those out and you’re left with 10 full entry-level jobs. That’s less than 3% of everything open.
Here’s the full split by level:
| Level | Jobs | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Entry (including 11 internships) | 21 | 5% |
| Mid | 187 | 49% |
| Senior | 120 | 31% |
| Lead or manager | 55 | 14% |
ISACA’s 2025 survey hints at why. Only 27% of the security professionals it asked said university graduates are well prepared for the job (ISACA).
If you’re breaking in, don’t give up. Just know the front door is small. Our advice: look at IT help desk and network jobs too. They give you the hands-on time these job ads want.
Which blue team roles are hiring
Security engineers make up the biggest group, with 161 jobs. That’s more than double the SOC analyst count.
| Role | Open jobs | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Security engineer | 161 | 42% |
| SOC analyst | 67 | 17% |
| Incident responder | 36 | 9% |
| Threat intelligence (CTI) analyst | 28 | 7% |
| Security operations leadership | 21 | 5% |
| Cloud security engineer | 20 | 5% |
| Detection engineer | 17 | 4% |
| Digital forensics (DFIR) | 15 | 4% |
| Vulnerability management | 9 | 2% |
| Threat hunter | 9 | 2% |
Threat hunter and vulnerability management jobs are rare, with 9 each. If that’s your goal, a SOC or incident response job is a good place to build up experience first.
Remote work: about 1 in 3 jobs
Here’s how the 383 jobs split by work setup:
- Remote: 119 jobs (31%)
- Hybrid: 54 jobs (14%)
- Onsite: 210 jobs (55%)
So most blue team jobs still want you in the office at least part of the week. You can browse the remote ones on our remote blue team jobs page.
What blue team jobs pay
Just under half the jobs (179 of 383, or 47%) showed a salary range.
We looked at the jobs that list a yearly salary in US dollars. After we removed duplicate postings, that left 138 jobs. For each one we took the middle of its range.
- Median: $170,000
- Middle half: $135,000 to $203,400
That’s higher than the government’s number. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median for information security analysts at $129,180 (May 2025) (BLS). One likely reason: 95% of our jobs are mid level or above.
Pay also changes a lot by role. SOC analysts had a median of $123,800 (22 jobs). Security engineers had $183,000 (63 jobs). See every role on our salary pages.
The surprise: cleared jobs paid less
We expected jobs that need a security clearance to pay more. Overall, they paid less.
- Jobs needing a clearance: median $152,500 (45 jobs)
- Jobs with no clearance: median $182,500 (93 jobs)
Look closer and the story changes by role. Security engineers show the biggest gap. Cleared ones had a median of $157,400 (20 jobs). Those with no clearance had $202,500 (43 jobs).
SOC analysts went the other way. Cleared SOC jobs paid a bit more, $130,500 vs $122,500 (11 jobs each). So for SOC work, a clearance can still give you a small edge.
About 1 in 4 jobs (99 of 383) needed a clearance. TS/SCI was the most common, with 48 jobs. See them on our TS/SCI jobs page.
Who’s hiring
These five employers had the most open blue team jobs:
- Accenture Federal Services: 24
- GuidePoint Security: 20
- Agile Defense: 15
- Rocket Lab: 12
- Stripe: 12
Accenture Federal Services and Agile Defense both do government work, and many of their jobs need a clearance.
About 63% of jobs (242) were in the US. India (13), the UK (11) and Canada (8) came next.
How this fits the wider market
Our count is a snapshot of 105 employers, not the whole market. For the big picture, CyberSN counted 235,786 US cybersecurity job postings from January to September 2026. That’s down 26.4% from the same months in 2025 (SecurityWeek).
Jobs also move fast. Since October 13, 124 jobs on our board have closed. We’ll repeat this count every quarter so you can see what changes.
How we counted
- Date: October 30, 2026
- Jobs: 383 open jobs from 105 employers
- Where from: the employers’ own public job boards on Greenhouse (263 jobs), Lever (90) and Ashby (30)
- What counts: defensive security roles only. We skip penetration testing, red team and other offensive roles. Here’s why.
- Tagging: software reads each posting and tags role, level, pay, clearance, skills and certs. It can miss things, so treat small numbers with care.
- Pay: jobs with a yearly salary in US dollars, one entry per company, role and range, using the middle of each range.
Key numbers
- Only 10 of 383 blue team jobs were true entry-level roles.
- Security engineers and SOC analysts make up 60% of openings.
- About 1 in 3 jobs is fully remote.
- The median posted salary was $170,000, but SOC analysts sit closer to $124,000.
- Cleared jobs paid less overall. For SOC analysts, they paid a little more.
Want to see the jobs behind these numbers? Start with our entry-level blue team jobs or browse all blue team jobs.
Sources
- BlueTeamJobs job data, October 30, 2026
- BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook: Information Security Analysts
- SecurityWeek on CyberSN’s 2026 jobs report
- ISACA State of Cybersecurity 2025
Last verified: October 30, 2026