Watch, patrol, report. You can be licensed in weeks, and it is a doorway into a lot of other jobs.
Click through it
Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Counsellors: send it to a student from your own email in one click.
Programs in the fields this career usually comes through. Each has its own page: what it takes to get in, the courses you need and what it costs.
The median pay is about $38,020 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $30,210 at the lower end to about $58,840 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
Up to 1 year after high school, on the usual route.
$150 to $900 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
Yes. It is a regulated job, so you need a license or registration before you can work.
Good demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$38,020
Bottom tenth
$30,210
Top tenth
$58,840
The national median is $38,020 a year. The bottom tenth earn $30,210 or less and the top tenth $58,840 or more (2025 federal wage survey). Where you sit in that range depends on whether you are armed, whether you work directly for a company or for a contract guard agency, and the site you are assigned to.
$14.52 to $16.93 an hour
What the bottom tenth to bottom quarter of security guards earn, 2025
Unarmed contract guards at a lobby, warehouse or construction site usually start here. This is one of the very few jobs where you can go from applying to licensed and working in a few weeks, with no tuition. That speed is also why the entry pay is low.
$47,480 a year
The median for security guards in Alaska, the highest of any state
The District of Columbia is far higher at $64,210, and Washington state is close to Alaska at $47,100. The lowest is West Virginia, at $28,800 (2025 wage survey).
Roughly, all in
$150 to $900
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
There is no tuition here at all. The low end is the state application and fingerprinting fee when the hiring employer pays for the short registration course, which many do. The high end is paying for that course yourself plus a firearms permit and the extra training that goes with going armed, which runs several hundred dollars on its own and needs refresher training on a schedule. Uniforms and boots are often supplied, though some agencies take a deposit out of your first few checks. A criminal justice degree only matters later, if you want to move into management.
There is no tuition and no FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) needed here. If you later want a criminal justice degree to move into management, that is when federal aid matters.
Hourly
Almost always. Federal law requires time and a half past 40 hours for hourly workers, and overtime is easy to get.
Shift differential
Nights, weekends and holidays usually pay extra. Many guards deliberately take nights for that reason.
Event work
Stadiums, concerts and conventions hire per event. Good side income, no guaranteed hours.
In-house versus contract
A contract agency bills the client and pays you a share. Working directly for the site owner often adds real benefits.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
One of the shortest paths on this site. Weeks, not years.
High school or an equivalency
Grades 11 and 12
Most employers want a diploma or a GED (a high school equivalency credential). Some do not require either.
Decide armed or unarmed
A decision, not a step
Unarmed is faster, cheaper and far more common. Armed needs a separate permit, more training and usually a minimum age of 21.
State registration
2 to 8 weeks
Take the required training course, submit fingerprints for a criminal background check, pay the fee and receive your guard registration.
Get hired and learn the site
First months
Post orders, patrol routes, access control, incident reports and radio procedure. Your first month is mostly learning one building.
Move up or move over
Year 2 onward
Shift supervisor, account manager, in-house corporate security, or use the experience to apply to police, corrections or federal work.
English
You write incident reports that can end up in court. Clear, factual writing is the most valued skill in this job.
Criminal justice, if offered
Useful background, and it is the natural next degree if you want to move into management or policing.
A second language
Especially Spanish. Guards deal with the public constantly.
Health and first aid
CPR and first aid certification are expected on most sites and required on some.
In most states you need a state registration, often called a guard card, before you can work as a paid security guard. Which body issues it changes state by state: in California it is the Bureau of Security and Investigative Services, which licenses the alarm, locksmith, private investigator, private security and repossession industries together. Elsewhere it may be the state police, a licensing department or the attorney general's office. Nearly all of them require fingerprints, a criminal background check and a short course, with extra training and a separate permit to carry a firearm. Check your own state before you pay anybody for training.
Things you don't need, but that help.
An armed permit
Opens armed posts, and comes with much heavier responsibility and ongoing training.
Security certifications
ASIS International (the main professional body for security managers) offers the Associate Protection Professional for early careers and the Certified Protection Professional and Physical Security Professional for experienced staff.
Eligibility for a security clearance
Opens defense contractor, government facility and data center work.
CPR, first aid and emergency medical training
Hospitals, campuses and large venues look for officers who can act before the ambulance arrives.
Fire and life safety qualifications
Some cities require building fire safety directors, a step above ordinary guard posts.
A clean record and a clean driving record
Both are checked, and patrol roles need you insured to drive a marked vehicle.
De-escalation training
The whole job is talking people down without touching them. Some employers train it, most do not.
Being genuinely fine with nights
A huge share of security work is overnight. Some people thrive on it and some never adjust.
Comfort writing
Officers who write clean, unemotional reports get promoted before officers who do not.
Plenty of people do security for a year or two on purpose. It pays while you finish a criminal justice degree, it looks good on a police or corrections application, and it teaches you radio procedure, report writing and how to handle a confrontation without making it worse. Federal buildings, military bases and government agencies also hire protective officers, and those postings are advertised on USAJOBS (the federal government's official employment site). Used deliberately, this job is a stepping stone. Used by default, it can quietly become ten years near the bottom of the pay range.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Relieve the outgoing officer and read the pass-down log. Check the cameras and the access system. Then patrols on a set route, punching checkpoints so the client can prove you walked it. Long stretches of nothing, punctuated by a locked-out employee, a delivery driver at the wrong dock, an alarm that is almost always a door left open, and occasionally something real. Write everything down. Nights are quiet and slow, and staying alert through them is the actual skill.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
You have no special arrest powers, no authority to search and no immunity. Your real tools are presence, observation and a written report. Understanding that line is what keeps security officers out of court.
O*NET (Occupational Information Network) marks security guard as a Bright Outlook job, with about 156,000 openings a year expected from 2025 to 2035. Growth is slow, 1% to 2% over the decade, so nearly all of those openings come from people leaving the job.
California's Bureau of Security and Investigative Services licenses alarm companies, locksmiths, private investigators, private security and repossession agencies. In other states those five sit under completely different agencies.
ASIS International (the global professional body for security managers) runs its own professional certifications. They run from entry level up to the Certified Protection Professional, which is the credential corporate security directors are hired on.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Military and security first, then the rest of the field. See every career in law and public safety.
Last checked October 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in United States dollars, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data and published pay scales. They vary by state, employer and experience. Tuition is for in-state students at public schools unless the card says otherwise. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
Tell us about this page. A person reads every message.
No email app on this device? Use Gmail instead: report a mistake in Gmail or say what you like in Gmail.