Salaries of a Computer Forensics Specialist

A computer forensics specialist receives training to fight crimes that range from online child pornography crimes to finding a hacker who has damaged personal or national computer systems, or to help recover any files on computers that have been damaged or destroyed. This specialty can recover data, which caused the problem, that can be used in a criminal prosecution trial. The specialist role may be the supervisor of the forensic analyst or work side-by-side with the analyst. The salary has many variations. The variations include gender, years of work experience, by the type of employer, by city and state, and the type of company the computer expert works for performing his investigations.

Average Salary by Years of Experience and Gender

A female computer forensics specialist average salary falls between $40,000 to $75,000 per year; and a male computer forensics analyst average salary falls between $50,000 to $90,000 per year. The average starting annual salary with no industry experience is $40,000, one to four years' experience pays between $40,000 to $80,000, and five to nine years' experience pays $60,000 to $100,000. For 10 to 19 years' experience the salary increases to $80,000 to $120,000 annually.

Average Salary by Employer Type

Employer types include publicly and privately owned companies. There are also state, local and federal government employers. Federal employees and employees of publicly owned companies make a salary up to $100,000 per year. Privately owned companies pay an average salary of $90,000 per year. State and local government employees are paid the average salary of $80,000 per year.

Average Salary by City

Atlanta has a median salary at $60,000 annually; and Washington has the highest paying salary at $120,000 per year throughout the market for all types of businesses in these cities.

Average Salary by State

Virginia, Texas, Illinois, California and Massachusetts have the highest paid salaries for a computer forensics specialist. Virginia's highest annual salary is $100,000, Texas' is $90,000, Illinois' is $110,000, California's is $110,000, and Massachusetts' is $90,000 per year. These salaries are throughout the market for all types of businesses in these states.

Average Salary by Company Size

The average company size to hire a computer forensics specialist is between 200 employees and 199,999 employees. The highest salary was between 200 to 599 employees and 20,000 to 49,999 employees. The highest paid annual salaries were between $120,000 to $140,000.

Average Salary by Company Type

There are multiple specialty areas in which a computer forensics specialist can work. Some of these areas include financial services, government and law enforcement. The annual salary range for law enforcement is $40,000 to $75,000, financial services is $75,000 to $100,000, and government contractors make between $50,000 to $110,000 per year.

References

• How to become a forensics specialist
• Years of experience
• Salary per state

Resources

• Computer forensics specialist