How to Make More Money in Security

How to Make More Money in Security

If you’ve been in the security industry for a while you may be looking at how you can level up your security career and find the next role that is going to skyrocket your earning potential as a security guard.

While security guards earn a modest wage at the beginning of their careers, the earning potential is huge if you know which roles to take on and which areas to specialise in. That’s why we have put together this list of ways to make more money in security.

Choose the right shifts

If you’re working as a security guard and you feel like you’re not making enough money, one of the first things you can do to up your earning potential is to choose the right shifts.

If you’re working day shift as a security guard, you’re missing out on the opportunity to do shifts that have penalty rates. In Australia the security industry award starts at a full-time rate of $22.84 per hour for full-time employees on a level one salary. But if you work as a casual you start at a rate of $28.55 per hour on a level one rate and this goes up to $33.51 for weekday night work and $51.39 for Sunday work.

This means if you work an eight-hour shift on a Sunday you would make over $400 for one shift. Choosing night work, weekend work and casual contracts will net you more income than a Monday to Friday full-time day shift.

Put your hand up supervisor roles

If you want to level up your earning potential along with your career prospects, putting your hand up for supervisor positions is the path to take. Show initiate, communicate your interest in completing supervisory tasks to your manager and get your foot in the door. It could start by taking on a supervisor role temporarily to cover for someone’s holidays or sick leave. Once you have supervisor experience you can go for roles like this in the future.

If you’re interested in taking on more responsibility and working your way up to supervisory roles you can show your passion for the industry and your leadership quality and initiative by completing a Certificate IV in Security Management.

This course is designed to teach you everything you need to know to work at a high level of security management, including how to assess and advise on client security needs, facilitate security briefing and debriefing, coordinate recruitment and onboarding, lead team effectiveness, supervise security operations and much more. You can learn more about this course here.

Cash in Transit

If you’re wanting to find a way to increase your earnings potential in security, then you could explore working as a Cash-in-transit guard. These guards are responsible for the moving of cash and precious items from one place to another. These are the guards you’ll see refilling the ATMs or collecting cash from the bank. They also accompany jewellery, artwork and other items depending on the job they’re doing on that day.

A cash-in-transit guard might be in plain clothes discreetly pulling through the drive thru collecting a big mac and $30,000 or they might be in full uniform, armed, collecting tens of thousands of dollars from the bank.

Cash-in-transit guards tend to make more money than a standard security guard, with Glassdoor reporting average hourly rates at $50 per hour.

In order to get into Cash-in-transit guarding, you’ll have to complete some additional study. The course is the cash-in-transit skill set and this course is taught in an accelerated one-day face-to-face workshop. It costs $250 to do the course as a standalone course but most people choose to also complete the Firearms and Defensive Tactics course to give them the chance to work as an armed cash-in-transit guard.

The firearms and defensive tactics course is the course you’ll need in order to be able to work as an armed security guard. This course is taught over a six-day face-to-face workshop at our North Lakes location. This course includes live shooting practice at the firing range, and you will be assessed both on safe handling and marksmanship.

This course can be packaged with the cash-in-transit course for a total cost of $1350 or you can elect to just attend this course for $1250. This course is the requirement if you want to be able to add cash in transit to and existing security licence and apply for an occupational firearms licence.

Working as an armed security guard will generally come with a higher pay package because of the danger pay with an average yearly salary of $64,229 according to Indeed.

Cyber Security

If you’re interested in moving to a different area of the security industry altogether, you can check out cyber security. This industry is experiencing a boom alongside an industry shortage which is driving up the median wage, the average salary for cyber security expert in Australia is now $99,414.

In order to move into this field, you’ll need to have an interest in coding and hacking. There are many different roles you could do as a cyber security expert and to start out you can complete a Certificate IV in Cyber Security. This course is taught online and takes anywhere from six months to a year depending on the delivery mode you chose.

But cyber security is a growing industry with a high earning potential. If you’re into tech and you think you’d be good at this industry you can check out the course here or get in touch with one of your friendly course advisors here.

Bodyguarding

If you’re a security guard and you want to level up your career you could consider moving into bodyguarding. This specialist area of the industry will up your earning potential significantly and provide opportunities to move up the career ladder.

Hollywood might have you thinking bodyguards are constantly dodging bullets in high stakes operations and accompanying the biggest stars in the world. However, it’s not all glitz, glam and glory. In the industry there has recently been an increased demand for personal protection in the corporate world, so a bodyguard might be just as a likely to be walking the halls of an office building late at night as they are walking the red carpet.

A bodyguard or a close protections operative is basically in charge of making sure that their client is safe, the rooms, or buildings they are entering are secure and their security detail and systems are checked and running smoothly. If you’re interested in moving into this area, the course you would need to complete is the Certificate III in Close Protections Operations.

That was our list of ways to earn more money in security.

If you’re looking for ways to level up and you’d like some help you can check out our courses here or get in touch with us here. Our team are experts on security training and careers, and they’d love to help.