A DoD Secret clearance holder reported average total compensation of $107,439 in 2025. Someone running comparable technical work inside an intelligence agency reported $165,063. Same profession, same year, roughly $57,600 apart. The variable doing most of that work is not the resume. It is how much access the clearance grants, and how few people are cleared to that level at all.

How much is a security clearance actually worth in 2026?

There is no single official number. The clearance premium is measurable only through a self-reported annual survey of cleared professionals, which put average total compensation at $126,125 in 2025, an all-time high. Federal wage data does not isolate a clearance premium, so read every figure below as a directional survey proxy, not a government statistic.

The compensation figures throughout this article come from the ClearanceJobs 2026 Security Clearance Compensation Report, published in March 2026 and reflecting 2025 pay. It is a survey: cleared professionals reporting their own total compensation, not a payroll audit. Weighted that way, it still tells a consistent story. Seventy percent of respondents reported a base-pay increase, and 12 percent saw raises above 10 percent, in a year the report frames as one of federal-workforce uncertainty. Demand for access held up while much of the wider labor market cooled.

What is the pay delta by clearance level?

Pay tracks access almost step by step. DoD Secret holders reported $107,439 in 2025. Top Secret came in at $126,839 and Top Secret with SCI at $139,261. Intelligence-agency professionals topped the ladder at $165,063. The distance from a plain Secret clearance to intelligence work is about $57,600. The report rounds that to nearly $60,000.

Source: ClearanceJobs 2026 Security Clearance Compensation Report (self-reported, reflecting 2025 pay). The ladder mirrors the damage standard the government assigns each level. Under Executive Order 13526, Confidential covers information whose disclosure could cause damage to national security, Secret covers serious damage, and Top Secret covers exceptionally grave damage. Fewer people are trusted with the top rung, and survey pay follows that scarcity. SCI and polygraph access sit on top of Top Secret rather than beside it, which is why the numbers keep climbing past the nominal levels.

A polygraph is where the curve steepens. Respondents holding a lifestyle or full-scope polygraph reported $149,875 on average. Those with a counterintelligence polygraph reported $148,128. Both sit well above the $118,680 reported by professionals with no polygraph.

That is nearly $30,000 for the willingness and clearance to sit for the most invasive vetting the system runs. One caution: this is correlation, not a raise you can request. A polygraph usually rides along with TS/SCI and intelligence work that would pay more regardless. It also helps to know what does not count. A public-trust position is not a security clearance and sits on a separate track, which is a frequent source of confusion when people compare two offers side by side.

Why does holding a clearance command a premium?

Supply, mostly. The cleared pool is fixed and slow to grow. About 2.47 million DoD personnel held active access as of September 2024, a new Secret runs roughly 138 days to process and a Top Secret about 243, and no one can clear themselves without a sponsor. A candidate cleared already skips every step.

Start with the pool. As of September 30, 2024, about 2.47 million DoD employees and contractors were eligible and in active access to classified information, out of roughly 5.42 million cleared to some degree across the department. Those are DoD-specific counts, and DoD is the large majority but not the whole of the federal cleared workforce. The number moves slowly by design.

Now the cost of adding to it. End-to-end processing for a Secret ran about 138 days in the third quarter of FY2025, and a Top Secret about 243, both up sharply from FY2023, when a Secret cleared in 94 days. Every one of those days is a seat a contract cannot fill and a body a program manager cannot bill. What sponsoring a clearance actually costs a company runs well beyond the calendar.

There is also a rule people forget. Under 32 CFR 117.9, the NISPOM rule that governs access to classified information, eligibility runs through a sponsor with a bona fide need, whether that sponsor is a government contracting activity or an already-cleared contractor. Nobody clears themselves. You cannot walk in off the street and apply for access to raise your own market value, which is why an already-cleared candidate is not just convenient but structurally scarce.

The interim path softens the wait without removing the scarcity. More than 120,000 people were approved to onboard on preliminary determinations in FY2024, which lets an interim-eligible hire start billing months before final adjudication. And once you hold it, the value is portable. DCSA now averages a single day for transfer of trust, the reciprocity step that moves a clearance between employers, and the entire national-security population is enrolled in continuous vetting rather than periodic reinvestigation. The databases behind that portability are worth understanding before you switch jobs.

Recruiters put the resulting imbalance at roughly 70,000 more cleared openings than cleared people to fill them. Treat that as directional commentary, not a census. The direction has not changed in years.

How does pay differ by role and specialty?

Role sets the floor, access lifts it. In the survey’s first two years on the job, IT roles led at $82,753 and ran ahead of intelligence at $77,848 and engineering at $75,916. Cyber and IT top that list because the skills transfer instantly and the shortage is acute.

The role gap is smaller than the clearance gap, but it compounds over a career. The general-market median for information security analysts reached $129,180 in 2025 wage data, and O*NET still tags the occupation as growing much faster than average through 2034. Aerospace engineering, another cleared-heavy specialty, carried a $134,960 median. Add a clearance to either and you move above the general-market line, not below it.

What the clearance survey cannot show you is how a contractor actually converts your access into a paycheck. That runs through the wrap rate, the multiplier that turns your labor category into a billable rate, and it explains why two people with the same clearance and title can be paid very differently. It also explains the split between contractor pay and the GS scale, which is a different calculation entirely.

Where do cleared jobs pay the most?

In a handful of ZIP codes. Maryland led the survey at $139,303. Virginia sat close behind at $138,748 and held a full 21 percent of all respondents. Colorado reached $138,256 and the District of Columbia $136,369. Pay concentrates where the agencies and the classified work sit.

Geography is the second-largest lever after access. The National Capital Region and the intelligence hubs around Fort Meade, Denver, and northern Virginia pull the averages up because that is where the programs live. It is also why cleared pay held its ground through the recent federal hiring turbulence: contractor demand did not move to wherever the freeze landed.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much is a Secret clearance worth in salary terms?

DoD Secret holders reported average total compensation of $107,439 in 2025 in the self-reported ClearanceJobs survey. The clearance has no fixed dollar value of its own. What it buys you is access to a wider set of jobs and the ability to start without the roughly 138-day wait an employer faces to clear someone new.

Does a Top Secret clearance pay more than a Secret?

In the 2025 survey, yes. Top Secret holders reported $126,839 against $107,439 for Secret, and adding SCI raised the reported average to $139,261. The step up reflects both scarcer access and the harder-to-fill roles that require it.

How much does a polygraph add to cleared pay?

Respondents with a full-scope or lifestyle polygraph reported $149,875, nearly $30,000 above the $118,680 reported by those with no polygraph. Read it as correlation: a polygraph usually accompanies TS/SCI and intelligence work that pays more on its own.

Can I get a security clearance on my own to raise my pay?

No. Under 32 CFR 117.9, access to classified information runs through a sponsor with a bona fide need, normally a cleared employer or government contracting activity. You cannot self-apply. That is the structural reason candidates who already hold a clearance command a premium.

Why are cleared salaries higher than the general market?

Fixed supply meeting steady demand. About 2.47 million DoD personnel held active access in September 2024, a new Top Secret takes roughly 243 days to process, and reciprocity between employers averages a single day once you are in. Scarce, slow to replace, and instantly portable is a pricing formula.

The 2025 numbers describe a market where the binding constraint is people, not openings. Recruiters count on the order of 70,000 more cleared positions than cleared professionals to fill them, and the processing math says that gap will not close quickly in 2026. If you already hold the access an employer needs, you are the scarce input in that equation, and the fastest way to price it is to see which cleared roles are open right now rather than wait for a recruiter to find you.