Job description (title)

Senior Vice-President	4.5%
Director	10.2%
General Manager	9.8%
Department Manager	25.6%
Supervisor	21.8%
Front-line security employee	21.7%
IT security professional	6.4%

Age

20-30	11.3%
30-40	23.8%
40-50	33.4%
50 plus	31.5%

Gender

Male	84.5%
Female	15.5%

Salary (full time)

Less than $30,000	9.94%
$30,000 to $50,000	24.4%
$50,000 to $70,000	18.1%
$70,000 to $90,000	29.4%
$90,000 to $120,000	13.1%
More than $120,000	4.8%

A total of 41.5 per cent of respondents said that wages are the most pressing issue facing the security industry. Lack of training was cited by 56.7 per cent as their immediate occupational concern.

One industry observer isn’t surprised that wages ranked so high on the list of concerns. It’s human nature to want more money, says Kevin Spagone, director of Reitman Security Search, a recruitment agency based in Branford, Conn.

“I’ve been doing this for 13 years now, and no one’s ever told me, ”˜I’m overpaid.’ Everybody always thinks that they’re underpaid.”

Spagone says the survey’s wage results shouldn’t necessarily be taken as an indication that the security industry is undervalued or its workers aren’t fairly compensated.

Spagone works with clients to place them in suitable security positions. Money is always a factor, but “our unwritten rule around here is, we don’t work with candidates that are purely money motivated.”

But compensation can be something of an uphill battle for security professionals, says Kevin Murphy, director of security operations for Woodbine Entertainment as well as president and chairman of the board of CSIS.

Security is perceived as an overhead cost for most businesses since it does not contribute to the bottom line. Nothing that a security department does is going to generate revenue, he says, “so everywhere you go, you’ve got that pressure.”

Compensation also depends greatly on whether an employee is working in-house or contract. A total of 66.3 per cent of survey respondents work in-house. Of those, 34.2 per cent rated wages as the most pressing concern for the industry. 33.7 per cent described themselves as contract employees. Of those, 57.9 per cent said wages were the most pressing concern.

The wage gap is probably higher in Canada than the U.S., says Murphy. Salary is also inextricably linked to training and experience, he says. It isn’t uncommon for relatively low-paid security professionals to interview for a position and find themselves on the job a matter of hours later.