The document discusses salaries and compensation trends for security professionals in Europe. It finds that in general, salaries are increasing, with noticeable raises for roles involving linguistic analysis and forensic data skills. Salaries vary across sectors, with engineering seeing above-average increases. Turkey is predicted to have the highest salary growth in Europe at 9%, but high inflation will reduce real wages. Real wages are expected to rise in most of Europe, except Ukraine and Russia where high inflation will reduce purchasing power despite salary increases.

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What is the criticality
of your role?
The SSR & Executive Profiles salary survey
reviews more than 4,000 security
professionals across the finance sector,
manufacturing, extractives, FMCG and
logistics. In 2016, the predicted salary increase
for top management roles remains at 3.4 –
5% year-on-year for the UK. For the second
year, private sector non-executive salaries will
increase on average by 2% up to 2.9% with
similar increases in Germany predicted in the
latest Willis Towers Watson annual survey.
The security professional in the physical world
is relatively lowly paid when compared to
professionals in other sectors. This is mainly
due to security leaders failing to project to
others, in particular the board, their broader
risk-based knowledge.
During 2016, corporations will continue to
pare back their back-of-house functions. The
Economist Intelligence Unit reported that the
trend is still strong to “off shore” but many
companies are opting to near shore. In the 28
EU countries, average hourly labour rates are
€29.80, yet this masks that the lowest rates
are €3.80 in Romania and surrounding
countries where there are good standards of
fluency in English or German.
What has this to do with security? Everything,
when you consider that the financial
regulators’ risk models still show a high
occurrence of data theft through locally
pressurised social engineering and
relationships. For organisations with critical
operations that are spread across a number of
countries, the risk of data theft increases.
Chief Security Officers’ concerns are that the
sexy Cyber word added to requests for budget
are being hijacked by IT people who have no
idea of the effect convergence will have on the
corporations preventing criminal penetration.
At one CSO interview, our interviewee stated,
“you have got to learn the long game”. His
CFO asked for the security costs to be reduced
by 25% over 2 years. “I made the difficult
decisions and achieved that target. I took the
heavily concentrated hub resource model and
disbursed my people, increasing our effective
resources by 25% through our recruitment of
professionals in lower cost environments such
as Eastern Europe. This performance has led to
the security department being at the top table,
we had achieved trusted business partner
status. The new skills we have attracted make
us cyber competent. We are now being asked
to investigate some of the $1.6 bn IT budget
and redirecting security spending to the seat of
our security concerns – our employees.”
In general terms, salaries across Europe are up,
with noticeable increases for linguistic analyst
and forensic data roles. Of five salary reviews
undertaken for major corporations this year,
we have seen an outcome that recommended,
on average, a 20% increase as result of
workers’ skills evaluations. Why? Security
management have, in general, since 2008
invested in their people. Recruitment freezes
have meant fewer people undertaking more
complex tasks. So whilst costs were being
trimmed, development budgets were
maintained, allowing for the training of
employees. In the past 6 years training has not
been a universal corporate priority, but where
it has, it has been the making of many people.
The source of individuals is up to 80% non-
law enforcement backgrounds, as the
e-economy is seeking people who fit their
customer model of character, typically
evaluating that person over 7 interviews. They
are rewarded by salaries that are in the top
quartile of any measurement, plus 25% of
salary wrapped up with a share scheme. To be
successful, applicants just need to speak the
same language as the business, lateral thought
process and managing all those coffee shop
meetings.
In an environment that is heavily led by
geniuses, those that need the comfort of
process guidelines might well find themselves
beached on the seeming apathy of those who
they wish to engage with. As all our successful
hires remark, you just need to understand and
address the audience.
To keep
out of the
headlines,
you need to
hire the best
For access to specialist staff
contact recruitment specialists
SSR® Personnel.
Two million web
accounts hacked
on ebay
Linkedin suffers
massive
security breach,
all users must
change their
passwords
Google, Twitter
and Facebook
have all been
hacked recently
Cyber
security
break-ins
a ‘daily
hazard
while
firms
skimp on
protection’
Internet users have two-
week window to protect
themselves, says UK’s
National Crime Agency
after working with
Europol and FBI
TJX retail
customers
credit card
details
compromised
SONY HACKED28 MILLIONUSERSHAVE DETAILSSTOLEN
Cyber-crime is a top priority for Europol
Yasmeen Stratton
Tel: +44 208 626 3100
ystratton@ssr-personnel.com
www.ssr-personnel.com

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>© C I T Y S E C U R I T Y M A G A Z I N E – S P R I N G 2 0 1 6 w w w. c i t y s e c u r i t y m a g a z i n e . c o m
CHIEF SECURITY OFFICER
Responsible for policy, executive board
briefings. Dotted line or direct responsibility
for subsidiary CSO / Head of security position.
Oversight budget responsible of £30m+.
Revenues of £2bn+.
* Included in Executive Long Term Incentive Plan
INTERNATIONAL CSO / HEAD OF SECURITY
Responsible for delivering localised policy,
executive board briefings. They are a driver
for change and service expansion.
Budget responsibility of £10m – £30m.
Revenues of £1bn+.
* Included in Executive Long Term Incentive Plan
EMEA SECURITY HEAD
Responsible for regional policy development,
executive reporting, promulgating corporate
policy, overview of physical and intellectual
protection. Budget responsibility £10m – £30m.
EUROPEAN SECURITY HEAD
Regional reporting, policy implementation,
promulgates corporate policy. Responsible for
physical and information security.
Budget responsibility £5m – £10m.
NATIONAL SECURITY HEAD
Responsible for all physical aspects of
corporate security and maintaining standards
across an estate.
Budget responsibility £2m – £10m.
SENIOR INVESTIGATOR
Responsibility for more than one country’s
operations. Active across all security breaches,
due diligence, product diversion, counterfeit
and auditing functions for the corporation.
MAIN HQ SITE SECURITY MANAGER
Physical and information protection, proactive,
local policy implementation and development.
Budget responsibility £2m – £5m+.
EUROPEAN SALARY SURVEY 2015 - 2016
£245 - 275k
215 - 240k
190 - 210k
165 - 185k*
140 - 160k*
£155 - 170k
125 - 150k
100 - 120k
90 - 95k
89k*
£110 -120k
96 -100k
70 - 90k
55 - 65k
40 - 52k
£85 - 95k
70 - 80k
60 - 65k
50 - 55k
37 - 45k
£85 - 90k
65 - 80k
55 - 60k
45 - 50k
30 - 40k
£100 -110k
85 - 95k
65 - 80k
55 - 60k
37 - 50k
£135 - 145k
110 - 130k
96 - 105k
80 - 95k
50 -75k
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%
£175 - 195k
140 - 170k
120 - 135k
90 - 115k*
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40%
REGIONAL INVESTIGATOR & DUE
DILIGENCE MANAGER Supply chain
management, implementing corporate
procedures. Compliance and auditing within
supply chain /
3rd party manu-
facturing
What is the pay differential down to?
From the job advert the roles seem the same,
yet sectors will bring their own peculiarities.
How do you value the Head of Security
protecting the nation’s food chain against an
applicant who is protecting a diversified
estate of 40,000 employees?
It is singly down to the organisation’s attitude
to risk and the interest that C-suite leaders
place on the responsibilities of security
people. As a group they are a small
proportion of overall employees, and many
tiers have been outsourced.
Looking at the UK overall by sector, subtle
variations in pay emerge. Organisations in
engineering-related sectors are forecasting
larger increases, as the war for talent
intensifies. Organisations in the Chemical, Oil
and Gas and Manufacturing sectors are all
predicting salary rises above the UK average
non-executive pay roll of 2% , at up to 3.5%
for executive roles.
Signs of hope in Europe
Turkey is forecast to experience the largest
increase in Europe with pay rises up to 9.0%.
However, workers will still feel a squeeze
on income with local inflation predicted to
be 8.9%.
According to Korn Ferry, workers across
Europe are set to see an average salary
increase of 2.8% in 2016 which, with
inflation at 0.5%, will see real wages rise by
2.3%. Western Europe will see a 2% increase
in real wages compared to a 2.9% increase in
Eastern Europe.
The outlook is positive in the UK, France and
Germany. Workers in France and Germany
will see real wage rises of 1.7% and 2.7%
respectively. The picture is similar in Greece,
where, despite economic issues, salaries are
set to increase 2% (compared to 1.3% last
year) with deflation leading to real wage rises
of 3.4% in 2016.
Two countries we are currently recruiting in
are excluded from the regional averages, due
to specific political issues causing high
inflation which impacts real wage increases.
Workers in Ukraine are forecast to see the
biggest wage rises in Europe (11.5%), but,
due to high inflation (48.3%), real wages are
set to drastically reduce by 36.8%. This is
desperate as it means the Ukrainian Hryvnia
since the Russian invasion has halved when
measured against the USD.
The outlook is similar in Russia as the impact
of economic sanctions and falling oil prices
hit the economy. Despite an average salary
increase of 7%, with inflation at 14.5%, real
wages will fall.
Peter French
Chief Executive, SSR Personnel
www.ssr-personnel.com