What a security clearance is actually worth: cleared pay, by the numbers
A clearance is worth real money — published surveys put the premium at 10–20%, with cleared professionals averaging $126,125 and full-scope-poly holders near $150,000. But the clearance is a multiplier on your skill, not a salary by itself. Here's what actually moves cleared pay.
"How much is my clearance worth?" is the most common money question in cleared work, and it has a real answer backed by published data. It's also the question that produces the worst folklore, because people want a single number they can attach to a TS/SCI the way you'd read a price off a tag. That's not how it works. A clearance is a multiplier on what you already bring, not a salary on its own. The premium is real, it's documented, and it compounds with the things that were always going to pay: scarce skills, the right location, and seniority.
Here's the sourced version, using the largest published dataset on cleared compensation, and an honest account of what the clearance is doing inside that number.
This is general, factual information drawn from published compensation surveys. It is not financial or career advice, and it is not a salary guarantee. The figures below are self-reported survey averages that vary widely by role, skill, location, employer, and year. Use them as a benchmark, not a promise.
The headline numbers
The most-cited source is the annual ClearanceJobs Security Clearance Compensation Report, a survey of cleared professionals. Its 2026 edition reported that average total compensation for cleared professionals hit an all-time high of $126,125, up nearly 6% over the prior year. Seventy percent of respondents reported a base-pay increase, and 12% saw raises above 10%.
The cleaner way to size the clearance's own contribution comes from ClearanceJobs' analysis of its survey data: a clearance adds roughly 10–20% on top of what the role would pay uncleared, and the bigger the clearance, the bigger that increment. That range is the honest headline — a meaningful lift, not a doubling, and not a ticket to six figures on its own.
For scale, the same survey data shows aggregate cleared pay landing around a $101,000 median, with roughly $75,000 at the 25th percentile and $136,500 at the 75th. The spread is the point: where you fall inside it is determined by the four levers below, not by the clearance alone.
What actually moves cleared pay
Clearance level and the polygraph
This is where the clearance itself shows up most directly, and it's concentrated at the top of the ladder. In the 2026 report, professionals holding a lifestyle or full-scope polygraph averaged $149,875 in total compensation — roughly $30,000 above what their cleared peers without a polygraph reported. The premium tracks the : a full-scope poly is the scarcest, hardest-to-replace access, so it commands the largest pay gap. A collateral Secret sits at the lower end of the premium; TS/SCI with a full-scope poly sits at the top.
Skill and role
The clearance multiplies your skill; it doesn't substitute for it. The same survey shows technical and mission-critical roles leading from day one. Among early-career professionals (first two years), IT roles averaged $82,753, intelligence $77,848, and engineering $75,916 — well above what comparable uncleared entry roles pay, and that's before the skill itself appreciates. This is also where certifications matter: a is often what separates two cleared candidates competing for the same technical seat. The highest cleared compensation sits in the Intelligence Community, where agencies like the CIA average more than $170,000, reflecting how specialized that work is.
Location
Cleared work clusters geographically, and pay clusters with it. In the 2026 report, the National Capital Region led: Virginia averaged $138,748 (21% of all respondents live there), Maryland $139,303, and the District of Columbia $136,369. Colorado stood out beyond the DMV at $138,256, on the strength of its space, intelligence, and defense work. The premium is partly cost-of-living and partly density of cleared contracts, which is why "remote TS/SCI" roles and roles outside these hubs often pay differently for the same title.
Seniority
The ordinary rule still applies on top of everything else: experience compounds. The same survey data puts cleared professionals with 0–4 years around $71,500, 5–10 years near $93,332, and 10+ years at roughly $125,228. The clearance premium rides on top of that curve rather than flattening it.
Why the premium exists at all
The premium isn't a perk employers hand out for goodwill. It's supply and demand with two extra constraints that don't exist in commercial hiring.
First, the pool is small and can't be expanded on demand. You can't — it has to be sponsored for a specific job, the investigation takes months, and the candidate has to be eligible to pass it. That bottleneck keeps the cleared labor pool tight no matter how many people want in.
Second, an already-cleared hire is billable immediately. For a contractor staffing a won task order against a deadline, a candidate who can start on a classified contract this week is worth materially more than an equally-skilled candidate who needs a months-long sponsorship first. The premium is the market pricing that difference.
Both forces concentrate at the top of the access ladder, which is why the full-scope-poly gap is the largest single jump in the data.
The honest caveats
- A clearance won't rescue a weak skill set. The 10–20% figure is a premium on your market rate, not a floor. A cleared candidate with a thin technical profile still competes against the market for that role.
- It's self-reported survey data. These are aggregate averages from professionals who chose to respond, blending early-career and senior, military and civilian, every region. Treat them as benchmarks, not as the number for your exact situation.
- Total comp is not base salary. The headline figures are total compensation. Base, bonus, and benefits split differently across employers, and a higher base with worse benefits can lose to a lower base with strong ones.
- The premium can compress. Hiring freezes, return-to-office mandates, and agency shifts move the market. The 2026 report describes a workforce "in motion," with 78% of cleared professionals at least somewhat likely to change jobs in the next year. A premium today is not a guarantee for next year.
What this means at hiring time
- Know your tier's premium before you negotiate. If you hold TS/SCI with a full-scope poly, the data says you're in the highest-paid band; don't anchor to a generic "cleared" average. If you hold a collateral Secret, calibrate to the lower end of the premium.
- Stack the levers. The candidate who clears the market is the one combining the access, the scarce skill, and the location — a in the DMV, not a clearance in isolation.
- Don't trade pay for "clearance experience." Early-career cleared roles already pay above their uncleared equivalents in the data. A below-market offer "because you'll get great clearance experience" is asking you to subsidize the employer for something the market already prices in your favor.
What this looks like inside ClearMatch
A once-a-year survey is a useful benchmark, but the cleared market moves continuously. ClearMatch scans USAJobs and roughly 20 vetted GovCon employer career feeds every day and ranks the live roles against your clearance, skills, and location — so the comp signal you're reasoning from is what employers are posting now, alongside the published benchmark, not a figure from twelve months ago.
The agent won't promise you a salary; no honest tool can, and the numbers above are exactly why. What it can do is surface the roles where your specific combination of clearance level, polygraph, skills, and location lines up with what the market is paying for, and explain the fit. The published premium tells you what a clearance is worth on average. The live market tells you what yours is worth this week.
Sources: and the , which is based on ClearanceJobs survey data. All figures are self-reported survey averages and vary widely by role, skill, location, employer, and year; they are benchmarks, not guarantees.