Install and fix alarms, cameras, card readers and fire detection. Low voltage, high responsibility.
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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.
The median pay is about $60,070 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $38,800 at the lower end to about $81,150 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
Up to 2 years, on the usual route, and you are paid while you train from the first day.
$800 to $7,800 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
It depends where you work. You need a license, certificate or registration in Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Iowa, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Washington. Elsewhere there is none to hold, though many employers still ask for training or a certificate.
Very high demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$60,070
Bottom tenth
$38,800
Top tenth
$81,150
The national median is $60,070 a year. The bottom tenth earn $38,800 or less and the top tenth $81,150 or more (2025 federal wage survey). The survey counts security and fire alarm system installers together.
$18.65 to $22.99 an hour
What the bottom tenth to bottom quarter of security and fire alarm installers earn, 2025
Helpers riding with an installer, pulling cable and mounting devices, usually start here. You get paid from the first week. There is no tuition and no degree. Most technicians learn the trade in a van next to somebody who has done it for fifteen years.
$79,870 a year
The median for security and fire alarm installers in Alaska, the highest of any state
Massachusetts ($78,530) and Rhode Island ($76,320) are close behind. The lowest is Mississippi, at $47,160 (2025 wage survey).
Roughly, all in
$800 to $7,800
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
Most technicians get hired as a helper and are paid from day one, so the low end is just the state alarm installer license or registration at under $300, with fingerprints and a background check included, plus a basic set of hand tools and a meter at around $500. The high end adds a one year community college electronics certificate at $2,000 to $6,000, which is useful but not required, and a fuller tool kit at $1,500. The van and the ladder belong to the employer. Only about 22 states license the technician, so in the rest the low end drops further.
File the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) if you take the community college route. Most technicians do not, because a registered apprenticeship or a helper job pays you instead of charging you.
Hourly with overtime
Federal law requires time and a half past 40 hours for hourly workers. Commercial jobs have deadlines and the weeks get long.
On-call pay
Service technicians rotate a phone. You get a flat payment for carrying it plus a minimum callout charge.
Install bonuses
Some residential companies pay per completed system on top of the hourly rate.
Company van and fuel card
Standard once you run your own jobs, and worth real money you do not see on the paycheck.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
No degree. You get hired as a helper, or into a registered apprenticeship, and certify as you go.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Electronics, computer classes and shop. A clean record matters here because you will work inside people's homes.
Get hired as a helper
0 to 12 months
Pulling cable, mounting devices, drilling and labeling. Six months to a year of this before you touch programming.
State license or registration, if your state has one
Weeks
About 22 states require an alarm installer credential, with fingerprints and a background check. Your employer usually walks you through it.
Learn to program and commission
Year 1 to 2
Panels, keypads, networked cameras, card readers and integrations. This is where you stop being a helper.
Certify and specialize
Year 2 onward
Fire alarm certification, manufacturer certifications and networking. Then service lead, project foreman or system designer.
Electronics or electrical technology
Voltage, current and reading a wiring diagram. The direct foundation of the job.
Computer networking
Modern cameras and access control run on the building's network, so half this trade is now networking.
Shop and construction technology
Drilling, fishing cable through walls and mounting things neatly in somebody's house.
English
You explain systems to customers who do not understand them, and you write service tickets.
About 22 states, including California, Texas, Illinois, Maryland and Virginia, require each technician to hold a state license or registration, usually with fingerprints and a criminal background check. Others, such as Michigan, Minnesota and New York, license only the company or leave it to cities, and some cities add their own permit on top. Fire alarm is the tightest corner of the trade: many state and local fire codes name certification from NICET (the National Institute for Certification in Engineering Technologies) as the qualification for designing, installing or inspecting fire alarm systems.
On the job
The main route. You ride with an experienced technician and learn one system at a time.
The industry's own training school
ESA (the Electronic Security Association) runs a National Training School with online, virtual and classroom courses in intrusion, cameras, access control, networking and fire.
Registered apprenticeships
Some electrical and low-voltage apprenticeships cover security and fire alarm work, and they pay you the whole way through.
Manufacturer training
Low-cost or no-cost certification directly from the makers of the panels and cameras your company installs.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Fire alarm certification
NICET (the National Institute for Certification in Engineering Technologies) fire alarm levels are written into many fire codes by name.
Networking skills
Cameras moved from coaxial cable to IP (internet protocol) networks, so switches, addressing and bandwidth are now part of the job.
Access control systems
Card readers, door hardware and the software behind them. Mostly commercial work.
Manufacturer certifications
Specific panel and camera platforms. Employers who sell that brand look for people who are certified on it.
An electrician's license
Crossing into full electrical work widens what you can legally do.
A driver's license and a clean record
Not optional. You drive a company van and enter people's homes.
Customer manner
Half the job is explaining a system to a nervous homeowner. Technicians who do it well get requested by name.
Comfort in attics, crawlspaces and on ladders
Cable has to get from one end of a building to the other, and it is rarely pleasant.
Neat cable work
This trade judges you on what the inside of the panel looks like. It is a real reputation.
Two clear routes up. The first is commercial and fire: bigger buildings, code-driven work, inspections and testing contracts that renew every year. The second is running your own integration business, installing and monitoring systems for small businesses. Monitoring is the interesting part, because a monitored account pays a monthly fee, and a book of those accounts is an asset you can eventually sell. That is why so many one-van alarm companies exist, and why the good ones are worth real money.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Load the van from the warehouse, check the day's work orders. Maybe two residential installs, or one day of a longer commercial job. Pulling cable through a ceiling grid, mounting cameras and readers, terminating at the panel, then programming and testing everything and walking the customer through it. Service days are different: five or six short calls, each one a fault you have to find. Some are a dead battery and some take three hours. You finish paperwork in the van at the last stop.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
ESA (the Electronic Security Association) was founded in 1948 and calls itself the largest trade association in this field in the United States. Its member companies employ more than 500,000 people and serve more than 34 million customers.
Very few trades have a specific private certification written into public safety codes. Fire alarm work does: NICET (the National Institute for Certification in Engineering Technologies) certification is required by many state and local fire codes for design and inspection.
Security cameras used to run on their own coaxial cable to a recorder in a closet. Almost all of them now run on the building's computer network, which is why IP (internet protocol) addressing is now part of this trade.
Many alarm activations are user error: a wrong code, a door left open, a pet, a low battery. A big part of the service side of this trade is stopping false alarms, because cities fine businesses for them.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Electrical and energy first, then the rest of the field. See every career in skilled trades.
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.
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