Security Management Specialists
13-1199.07
Bright Outlook Updated 2025

Conduct security assessments for organizations, and design security systems and processes. May specialize in areas such as physical security or the safety of employees and facilities.

Sample of reported job titles: Physical Security Engineer, Physical Security Specialist, Security Advisor, Security Analyst, Security and Workplace Violence Consultant, Security Consultant, Security Management Consultant, Security Specialist

Occupation-Specific Information

Tasks

  • Assess the nature and level of physical security threats so that the scope of the problem can be determined.
  • Respond to emergency situations on an on-call basis.
  • Recommend improvements in security systems or procedures.
  • Perform risk analyses so that appropriate countermeasures can be developed.
  • Inspect physical security design features, installations, or programs to ensure compliance with applicable standards or regulations.
  • Conduct security audits to identify potential vulnerabilities related to physical security or staff safety.
  • Design security policies, programs, or practices to ensure adequate security relating to alarm response, access card use, and other security needs.
  • Test security measures for final acceptance and implement or provide procedures for ongoing monitoring and evaluation of the measures.
  • Design, implement, or establish requirements for security systems, video surveillance, motion detection, or closed-circuit television systems to ensure proper installation and operation.
  • Prepare, maintain, or update security procedures, security system drawings, or related documentation.
  • Prepare documentation for case reports or court proceedings.
  • Develop conceptual designs of security systems.
  • Train personnel in security procedures or use of security equipment.
  • Review design drawings or technical documents for completeness, correctness, or appropriateness.
  • Provide system design and integration recommendations.
  • Monitor the work of contractors in the design, construction, and startup phases of security systems.
  • Budget and schedule security design work.
  • Inspect fire, intruder detection, or other security systems.
  • Develop or review specifications for design or construction of security systems.
  • Interview witnesses or suspects to identify persons responsible for security breaches or to establish losses, pursue prosecutions, or obtain restitution.
  • Outline system security criteria for pre-bid meetings with clients and companies to ensure comprehensiveness and appropriateness for implementation.
  • Monitor tapes or digital recordings to identify the source of losses.
  • Engineer, install, maintain, or repair security systems, programmable logic controls, or other security-related electronic systems.
  • Prepare written reports or presentations on findings and recommendations.
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Technology Skills

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Occupational Requirements

Work Activities

  • Getting Information — Observing, receiving, and otherwise obtaining information from all relevant sources.
  • Evaluating Information to Determine Compliance with Standards — Using relevant information and individual judgment to determine whether events or processes comply with laws, regulations, or standards.
  • Communicating with People Outside the Organization — Communicating with people outside the organization, representing the organization to customers, the public, government, and other external sources. This information can be exchanged in person, in writing, or by telephone or e-mail.
  • Making Decisions and Solving Problems — Analyzing information and evaluating results to choose the best solution and solve problems.
  • Communicating with Supervisors, Peers, or Subordinates — Providing information to supervisors, co-workers, and subordinates by telephone, in written form, e-mail, or in person.
  • Establishing and Maintaining Interpersonal Relationships — Developing constructive and cooperative working relationships with others, and maintaining them over time.
  • Working with Computers — Using computers and computer systems (including hardware and software) to program, write software, set up functions, enter data, or process information.
  • Identifying Objects, Actions, and Events — Identifying information by categorizing, estimating, recognizing differences or similarities, and detecting changes in circumstances or events.
  • Providing Consultation and Advice to Others — Providing guidance and expert advice to management or other groups on technical, systems-, or process-related topics.
  • Updating and Using Relevant Knowledge — Keeping up-to-date technically and applying new knowledge to your job.
  • Organizing, Planning, and Prioritizing Work — Developing specific goals and plans to prioritize, organize, and accomplish your work.
  • Analyzing Data or Information — Identifying the underlying principles, reasons, or facts of information by breaking down information or data into separate parts.
  • Documenting/Recording Information — Entering, transcribing, recording, storing, or maintaining information in written or electronic/magnetic form.
  • Processing Information — Compiling, coding, categorizing, calculating, tabulating, auditing, or verifying information or data.
  • Resolving Conflicts and Negotiating with Others — Handling complaints, settling disputes, and resolving grievances and conflicts, or otherwise negotiating with others.
  • Thinking Creatively — Developing, designing, or creating new applications, ideas, relationships, systems, or products, including artistic contributions.
  • Interpreting the Meaning of Information for Others — Translating or explaining what information means and how it can be used.
  • Developing Objectives and Strategies — Establishing long-range objectives and specifying the strategies and actions to achieve them.
  • Scheduling Work and Activities — Scheduling events, programs, and activities, as well as the work of others.
  • Developing and Building Teams — Encouraging and building mutual trust, respect, and cooperation among team members.
  • Monitoring Processes, Materials, or Surroundings — Monitoring and reviewing information from materials, events, or the environment, to detect or assess problems.
  • Coaching and Developing Others — Identifying the developmental needs of others and coaching, mentoring, or otherwise helping others to improve their knowledge or skills.
  • Selling or Influencing Others — Convincing others to buy merchandise/goods or to otherwise change their minds or actions.
  • Training and Teaching Others — Identifying the educational needs of others, developing formal educational or training programs or classes, and teaching or instructing others.
  • Guiding, Directing, and Motivating Subordinates — Providing guidance and direction to subordinates, including setting performance standards and monitoring performance.
  • Inspecting Equipment, Structures, or Materials — Inspecting equipment, structures, or materials to identify the cause of errors or other problems or defects.
  • Coordinating the Work and Activities of Others — Getting members of a group to work together to accomplish tasks.
  • Performing Administrative Activities — Performing day-to-day administrative tasks such as maintaining information files and processing paperwork.
  • Performing for or Working Directly with the Public — Performing for people or dealing directly with the public. This includes serving customers in restaurants and stores, and receiving clients or guests.
  • Judging the Qualities of Objects, Services, or People — Assessing the value, importance, or quality of things or people.
  • Monitoring and Controlling Resources — Monitoring and controlling resources and overseeing the spending of money.
  • Estimating the Quantifiable Characteristics of Products, Events, or Information — Estimating sizes, distances, and quantities; or determining time, costs, resources, or materials needed to perform a work activity.
  • Staffing Organizational Units — Recruiting, interviewing, selecting, hiring, and promoting employees in an organization.
  • Assisting and Caring for Others — Providing personal assistance, medical attention, emotional support, or other personal care to others such as coworkers, customers, or patients.
  • Drafting, Laying Out, and Specifying Technical Devices, Parts, and Equipment — Providing documentation, detailed instructions, drawings, or specifications to tell others about how devices, parts, equipment, or structures are to be fabricated, constructed, assembled, modified, maintained, or used.

Detailed Work Activities

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Work Context

  • E-Mail — 95% responded “Every day.”
  • Telephone Conversations — 83% responded “Every day.”
  • Duration of Typical Work Week — 80% responded “More than 40 hours.”
  • Face-to-Face Discussions with Individuals and Within Teams — 67% responded “Every day.”
  • Freedom to Make Decisions — 55% responded “A lot of freedom.”
  • Contact With Others — 45% responded “Constant contact with others.”
  • Determine Tasks, Priorities and Goals — 45% responded “Some freedom.”
  • Written Letters and Memos — 50% responded “Once a week or more but not every day.”
  • Indoors, Environmentally Controlled — 37% responded “Every day.”
  • Work With or Contribute to a Work Group or Team — 58% responded “Very important.”
  • Deal With External Customers or the Public in General — 35% responded “Extremely important.”
  • Impact of Decisions on Co-workers or Company Results — 55% responded “Important results.”
  • Coordinate or Lead Others in Accomplishing Work Activities — 58% responded “Very important.”
  • Spend Time Sitting — 65% responded “More than half the time.”
  • Importance of Being Exact or Accurate — 50% responded “Very important.”
  • Time Pressure — 45% responded “Once a month or more but not every week.”
  • Frequency of Decision Making — 32% responded “Every day.”
  • Health and Safety of Other Workers — 40% responded “High responsibility.”
  • In an Enclosed Vehicle or Operate Enclosed Equipment — 30% responded “Once a year or more but not every month.”
  • Work Outcomes and Results of Other Workers — 58% responded “High responsibility.”
  • Level of Competition — 58% responded “Moderately competitive.”
  • Conflict Situations — 35% responded “Once a month or more but not every week.”
  • Consequence of Error — 32% responded “Extremely serious.”
  • Physical Proximity — 53% responded “Moderately close (at arm's length).”
  • Dealing With Unpleasant, Angry, or Discourteous People — 37% responded “Once a week or more but not every day.”

Experience Requirements

Job Zone

Title
Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed
Education
Most of these occupations require a four-year bachelor's degree, but some do not.
Related Experience
A considerable amount of work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is needed for these occupations. For example, an accountant must complete four years of college and work for several years in accounting to be considered qualified.
Job Training
Employees in these occupations usually need several years of work-related experience, on-the-job training, and/or vocational training.
Job Zone Examples
Many of these occupations involve coordinating, supervising, managing, or training others. Examples include real estate brokers, sales managers, database administrators, graphic designers, conservation scientists, art directors, and cost estimators.
SVP Range
(7.0 to < 8.0)

Training & Credentials

State training
Local training
Certifications
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State licenses

Apprenticeship Opportunities

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Worker Requirements

Skills

  • Active Listening — Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
  • Critical Thinking — Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions, or approaches to problems.
  • Speaking — Talking to others to convey information effectively.
  • Judgment and Decision Making — Considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most appropriate one.
  • Reading Comprehension — Understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work-related documents.
  • Complex Problem Solving — Identifying complex problems and reviewing related information to develop and evaluate options and implement solutions.
  • Coordination — Adjusting actions in relation to others' actions.
  • Monitoring — Monitoring/Assessing performance of yourself, other individuals, or organizations to make improvements or take corrective action.
  • Systems Analysis — Determining how a system should work and how changes in conditions, operations, and the environment will affect outcomes.
  • Systems Evaluation — Identifying measures or indicators of system performance and the actions needed to improve or correct performance, relative to the goals of the system.
  • Writing — Communicating effectively in writing as appropriate for the needs of the audience.
  • Social Perceptiveness — Being aware of others' reactions and understanding why they react as they do.
  • Instructing — Teaching others how to do something.
  • Persuasion — Persuading others to change their minds or behavior.
  • Service Orientation — Actively looking for ways to help people.
  • Time Management — Managing one's own time and the time of others.
  • Active Learning — Understanding the implications of new information for both current and future problem-solving and decision-making.
  • Negotiation — Bringing others together and trying to reconcile differences.
  • Operations Analysis — Analyzing needs and product requirements to create a design.
  • Learning Strategies — Selecting and using training/instructional methods and procedures appropriate for the situation when learning or teaching new things.
  • Management of Personnel Resources — Motivating, developing, and directing people as they work, identifying the best people for the job.
  • Quality Control Analysis — Conducting tests and inspections of products, services, or processes to evaluate quality or performance.

Knowledge

  • Public Safety and Security — Knowledge of relevant equipment, policies, procedures, and strategies to promote effective local, state, or national security operations for the protection of people, data, property, and institutions.
  • English Language — Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, and rules of composition and grammar.
  • Customer and Personal Service — Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
  • Computers and Electronics — Knowledge of circuit boards, processors, chips, electronic equipment, and computer hardware and software, including applications and programming.
  • Administration and Management — Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.
  • Law and Government — Knowledge of laws, legal codes, court procedures, precedents, government regulations, executive orders, agency rules, and the democratic political process.
  • Personnel and Human Resources — Knowledge of principles and procedures for personnel recruitment, selection, training, compensation and benefits, labor relations and negotiation, and personnel information systems.
  • Education and Training — Knowledge of principles and methods for curriculum and training design, teaching and instruction for individuals and groups, and the measurement of training effects.
  • Engineering and Technology — Knowledge of the practical application of engineering science and technology. This includes applying principles, techniques, procedures, and equipment to the design and production of various goods and services.
  • Psychology — Knowledge of human behavior and performance; individual differences in ability, personality, and interests; learning and motivation; psychological research methods; and the assessment and treatment of behavioral and affective disorders.
  • Design — Knowledge of design techniques, tools, and principles involved in production of precision technical plans, blueprints, drawings, and models.

Education

How much education does a new hire need to perform a job in this occupation? Respondents said:

  • 65%
     
    Bachelor’s degree required
  • 10%
     
    Post-secondary certificate required
  • 10%
     
    Some college, no degree required

Worker Characteristics

Abilities

  • Oral Expression — The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
  • Problem Sensitivity — The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
  • Deductive Reasoning — The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
  • Oral Comprehension — The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
  • Inductive Reasoning — The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
  • Written Comprehension — The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
  • Written Expression — The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
  • Information Ordering — The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
  • Near Vision — The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
  • Flexibility of Closure — The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
  • Fluency of Ideas — The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
  • Speech Clarity — The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
  • Category Flexibility — The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
  • Originality — The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
  • Speech Recognition — The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
  • Selective Attention — The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
  • Far Vision — The ability to see details at a distance.
  • Perceptual Speed — The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
  • Visualization — The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.

Interests

Interest code: CIR
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  • Conventional — Work involves following procedures and regulations to organize information or data, typically in a business setting. Conventional occupations are often associated with office work, accounting, mathematics/statistics, information technology, finance, or human resources.
  • Investigative — Work involves studying and researching non-living objects, living organisms, disease or other forms of impairment, or human behavior. Investigative occupations are often associated with physical, life, medical, or social sciences, and can be found in the fields of humanities, mathematics/statistics, information technology, or health care service.
  • Realistic — Work involves designing, building, or repairing of equipment, materials, or structures, engaging in physical activity, or working outdoors. Realistic occupations are often associated with engineering, mechanics and electronics, construction, woodworking, transportation, machine operation, agriculture, animal services, physical or manual labor, athletics, or protective services.

Work Styles

  • Stress Tolerance — A tendency to cope and function effectively in stressful situations at work.
  • Achievement Orientation — A tendency to establish and maintain personally challenging work-related goals, set high work-related standards, and exert high effort toward meeting those goals and standards.
  • Cautiousness — A tendency to be careful, deliberate, and risk-avoidant when making work-related decisions or doing work.
  • Integrity — A tendency to be honest and ethical at work.
  • Attention to Detail — A tendency to be detail-oriented, organized, and thorough in completing work.
  • Dependability — A tendency to be reliable, responsible, and consistent in meeting work-related obligations.

Workforce Characteristics

Wages & Employment Trends

Median wage data for Business Operations Specialists, All Other.
Employment data for Business Operations Specialists, All Other.
Industry data for Business Operations Specialists, All Other.
Median wages (2024)
$39.07 hourly, $81,270 annual
State wages
Local wages
Employment (2024)
1,205,700 employees
Projected growth (2024-2034)
Average (3% to 4%)
Projected job openings (2024-2034)
108,200
State trends
Top industries (2024)

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics 2024 wage data and 2024-2034 employment projections . “Projected growth” represents the estimated change in total employment over the projections period (2024-2034). “Projected job openings” represent openings due to growth and replacement.

Job Openings on the Web

State job openings
Local job openings

More Information

Professional Associations

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National Associations
Accreditation, Certification, & Unions