The federal government has no occupational code for the job you are trying to price. An O*NET OnLine search for “facility security officer” returns 674 occupations by relevance, none carrying it as an occupation or alternate title. Created by regulation, staffed everywhere, measured nowhere.

So every published FSO salary figure prices a different job. Not a reason to stop benchmarking, a reason to know which job you are borrowing, and to settle whether you are hiring before what to pay.

Why is there no reliable facility security officer salary figure?

Short answer. Because the Bureau of Labor Statistics does not measure the job as a job. Three codes get borrowed, each defective differently.

The first candidate is SOC 13-1041, Compliance Officers, on the reasonable-sounding logic that an FSO administers compliance. O*NET describes it as investigating “conformity with laws and regulations governing contract compliance of licenses and permits.” Its sample of reported job titles includes Driver Examiner, Motor Vehicle Clerk and License Registration Examiner: titles incumbents reported, note, not the occupation’s composition. The code covers 418,000 employees economy-wide (O*NET, employment 2024), so $80,730 is a broad compliance median and a defensible floor, not DMV pay. It just isolates nothing about cleared work.

The second proxy fits the work far better and still cannot price it. O*NET-SOC 13-1199.07, Security Management Specialists, covers people who “conduct security assessments for organizations, and design security systems and processes.” Mind that eight-digit code: it exists only in O*NET’s extension of the Standard Occupational Classification, not in the SOC, which stops at 13-1199. That is why it has no wage of its own. O*NET labels the figure “median wage data for Business Operations Specialists, All Other,” the catch-all for roles BLS classifies nowhere else, so $83,050 is the median of the leftovers.

The third is the highest and easiest to misuse. O*NET-SOC 11-3013.01, Security Managers, is O*NET’s top relevance match, and another eight-digit extension with no wage of its own; the $106,660 is reported under 11-3013, Facilities Managers, which runs buildings, HVAC and grounds. That adjacent column destroys the comparison: “facility” in facility security officer means a cleared entity under the National Industrial Security Program, not a building. Of the three codes, only Compliance Officers is a detailed SOC occupation BLS publishes an estimate for.

Percentile spreads were not obtained; if a recruiter hands you a quartile band for “FSO,” ask which code it came from.

What does the government pay for the same work?

Short answer. The federal analog is the GS-0080 Industrial Security Specialist, running $85,447 at GS-11 step 1 to $158,322 at GS-13 step 10 in Washington-Baltimore, effective January 2026, and materially less anywhere else. A shape reference, not a contractor rate.

This is the one precise, current, primary pay anchor available. OPM’s classification standard for the Security Administration Series, dated December 1987 and still operative, prescribes the title Industrial Security Specialist for work that reads like an FSO position description from the government’s side: surveying private facilities for eligibility to store classified information, determining source of control, assuring clearance levels commensurate with the information handled. Quote it with the 1987 date.

On the 2026 General Schedule, base pay runs $63,795 to $82,938 at GS-11, $76,463 to $99,404 at GS-12 and $90,925 to $118,204 at GS-13, step 1 to step 10. Those grades are a mid-career illustration we chose, not an OPM designation: the standard scores positions onto a table running GS-5 to GS-15. In Washington-Baltimore-Arlington a 33.94% locality payment lifts them to $85,447 to $111,087, $102,415 to $133,142, and $121,785 to $158,322. Showing that locality is our choice and an unsourced one — no data we found measures where cleared industrial security work actually sits — and geography swings the answer hard. Outside a named locality, table 2026-RUS (Rest of U.S., 17.06%) is the right analog and much lower: GS-12 runs $89,508 to $116,362, roughly 13% under the DC band. Price against your own table, not this one.

One disclosure keeps this honest. Those are salaries the government pays its own employees. Your FSO is paid from a contract’s labor rates, carries fringe, and is loaded by your wrap rate before reaching the government as a billed hour. Reading the table as a contractor benchmark is a measurement-basis error.

Does the NISPOM recognize an assistant FSO?

Short answer. No. The phrase appears zero times in 32 CFR part 117. It is an industry job title and a useful budget lever: the rule constrains the appointed FSO tightly and the staff around them much less.

We searched the full text. “Assistant FSO” returns nothing; the only “Assistant” in the part is “Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs,” in the tribal-entity provision. What 32 CFR 117.7 says instead is that the senior management official appoints “a contractor employee or employees, in writing, as the FSO,” and that “a single contractor employee may serve in more than one position” depending on size and complexity. Both plurals are load-bearing, and the appointment is the SMO’s call. Start with the FSO requirements a cleared contractor has to meet and what 32 CFR part 117 requires of an employer.

Section 117.7(b)(1) sets the heavy requirements: eligibility at the entity’s own FCL level, KMP listing, written designation. By its terms it governs only the officials in (b)(2), (b)(3) and (b)(4), not (b)(6), employees performing security duties, who owe “security training tailored to the security functions performed.” So a coordinator who processes visit requests is not automatically a KMP-listed, FCL-cleared appointee, though their access drives their clearance regardless. That is our reading, not a DCSA pronouncement; confirm it before you write the req, and here is what DCSA actually does.

Citizenship sits higher up, in the (b) chapeau: “Contractors will appoint security officials who are U.S. citizens, except in exceptional circumstances (see § 117.9(m) and § 117.11(e)).” Keep the parenthetical: that escape hatch is not yours to open. Section 117.9(m) is the limited entity eligibility determination (non-FOCI), 117.11(e) its FOCI counterpart; both are CSA-granted, narrow, and carry access limits on all the entity’s employees regardless of citizenship. Note too what it governs: officials you appoint. Paragraph (b)(6) staff involve no appointment, so reading citizenship onto an unappointed coordinator extends the text rather than quotes it, and a citizenship bar without regulatory basis is the exposure 8 U.S.C. 1324b polices. Most affordable answers run one appointed FSO plus a person or two doing the volume work of sponsoring clearances.

What does the role cost in time before it produces anything?

Short answer. Six months from appointment, by regulation, with CDSE’s 26.5-hour orientation curriculum inside it. Storage capability triggers a second clock, where the CSA so determines, and a bigger curriculum of 38.5 hours total, which absorbs the 26.5 rather than adding to it.

32 CFR 117.12(d) gives a new FSO six months from appointment to complete training the CSA considers appropriate, plus, where the CSA so determines, a separate six-month clock from approval to store classified information for the program management course. CDSE fields the two curricula the regulation names: IS020.CU for non-possessing facilities, 26.5 hours across ten eLearning courses, and IS030.CU for possessing facilities, 38.5 hours across fourteen. The fourteen are the same ten plus four, so a possessing-facility FSO takes one curriculum, not two, and CDSE grants ACE credit for one or the other, never both. Both figures as published at capture, September 2025 and May 2026, from archived copies because cdse.edu blocks automated clients.

Subtracting one from the other is our arithmetic, not CDSE’s: twelve extra hours in safeguarding, derivative classification, marking and transmission. Process classified information on your own systems and 117.7(b)(5) also requires an ISSM cleared to the highest level processed, a headcount question closer to the staffing CMMC Level 2 forces than the FSO hire.

When does an outsourced FSO beat a hire?

Short answer. When the classified work is thin, there is no storage on site, and the alternative is a full-time salary against a few hours of weekly compliance. The regulatory basis is a reading of two provisions, not a stated rule.

The textual chain, as a reading, not law. Section 117.7(b)(2)(ii) requires the SMO to appoint “a contractor employee” as FSO. Section 117.10(m)(4) says that “for security administration purposes, a consultant will be considered an employee of the using contractor for compliance with this rule,” a consultant being, per 117.3, an individual under contract and compensated directly for assistance requiring classified access. Outsourced-FSO arrangements are built on that pair. But no source we could retrieve states a consultant may be appointed as the FSO, and DCSA’s guidance was not obtainable. Take both citations to your industrial security representative and get it in writing.

Two constraints shape the deal, and a third you will hear quoted does not. A consultant “will not access classified information off the premises of the using (hiring) contractor except in connection with authorized classified visits” (117.10(m)(1)), which caps how remote a remote FSO can be. And under 117.9(l) the CSA decides case by case whether a self-employed consultant needs their own entity eligibility determination.

The one to strike is the jointly executed consultant agreement with an original retained for the CSA. That is 117.10(m)(2)(ii), and (m)(2) opens: “A contractor may only assign a consultant outside the United States with responsibilities requiring access to classified information when.” Items (i) through (iv), joint execution and retained original included, sit inside that condition, so for a domestic consultant FSO no paragraph of 117.10(m) imposes either. What is general is (m)(3): the using contractor “will be the consumer of the consultant services as set forth in the consultant agreement,” which presupposes an agreement without prescribing its form. Paper the engagement anyway; it is how you evidence who owes what. Just do not cite an overseas-assignment paragraph for a domestic hire. Ask your representative what the CSA expects instead.

On price, there is no market rate to quote. Aggregate pricing for outsourced FSO services is not published, and GSA’s CALC tool, which would have supplied awarded labor rates, is folded into buy.gsa.gov with its public rates API returning 404. One provider, INTS2, advertises $250 per hour for short “sprint” engagements and negotiates longer embedded support: one company’s list price, retrieved July 2026. Not a median, not a survey, not a basis for an annual estimate. Collect three quotes of your own.

Which of the three arrangements fits your facility?

Short answer. Storage capability and classified headcount decide it. No storage and a handful of cleared staff points to dual-hatting or a consultant; a possessing facility with active clearance volume points to a dedicated hire.

We run a cleared job board, so take this as against interest. If you are a non-possessing facility with one classified contract and a handful of cleared staff, do not post an FSO req. Appoint someone internal who knows your contracts, send them through IS020.CU, buy consultant hours for the self-inspection. A posting is right when the work is genuinely full-time and you can name the storage and clearance volume that make it so; it is wrong for an obligation you have not scoped. The cost model is in what a cleared hire really costs.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the average facility security officer salary?

There is no measured average: no federal occupational classification carries the title. The figures in circulation are medians for adjacent occupations, $80,730 for Compliance Officers, $83,050 for Security Management Specialists and $106,660 for Security Managers, all wage year 2025, all measured on populations that include jobs unrelated to cleared industrial security. The last two are O*NET-only codes reported under broader parents.

Can we hire a contract FSO instead of an employee?

Many companies do, on the basis that 117.10(m)(4) treats a consultant as an employee of the using contractor for security administration. No source we could fetch states it as a rule, so confirm with your DCSA industrial security representative. Do not cite 117.10(m)(2)(ii) for the joint consultant agreement: that paragraph sits under a chapeau covering consultants assigned outside the United States. Domestically, 117.10(m)(3) assumes an agreement but sets no form for it.

Does an assistant FSO need a security clearance?

The title is not regulatory, so the answer follows the access, not the label. Employees performing NISP security functions owe training tailored to those functions under 117.7(b)(6); the FCL-level clearance and KMP listing in 117.7(b)(1) attach to appointed officials. Ask DCSA where your role sits.

How long does a new FSO have to complete training?

Six months from appointment for CSA-required training, and where the CSA determines it applies, six months from approval to store classified information for the FSO program management course.

This benchmark is hard because the question gets asked in the wrong order. Companies decide to hire an FSO, hunt for a salary figure to justify the req, and anchor on a median computed over compliance officers or facilities managers economy-wide. Those are real numbers about real populations, just not about this job. Run it backwards. Establish whether you have storage capability, count your cleared heads and annual clearance actions, and the arrangement picks itself. Only then does the number matter, and by then you want three quotes and a wrap rate, not a national median.