- Security administrators work in a wide range of industries, from education to sales to the military. They do everything from create customer profiles to write scripts to install passwords that allow employees to log into the system. They also must make sure system backups are in place and create recovery procedures should critical information be lost. Another key duty of security administrators is adding anti-virus software to the system, occasionally running it even when an issue isn't evident.
- Security administrators must be organized, analytical and capable of identifying and solving problems. They must be computer experts, staying current with the latest technology monitoring and security programs. They should possess excellent communication skills, quickly alerting management and employees when security has been breached or needs updating. Along with those things, security administrators should take a positive approach to their jobs, and work well alone or as members of a team.
- Most companies favor applicants with a bachelor's degree when hiring a security administrator. Sometimes, security administrators can be hired with an associate degree from a vocational or trade school, but much of it depends on each individual business. Areas of college study for security administrators typically include computer science, database management, business, systems design and systems security. Security administrators may also spend time working in related positions, such as network engineering or website design.
- Opportunities for those in the growing computer industry, such as security administrators, should be abundant for at least the next decade, and likely beyond. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment of computer network administrators is expected to increase by 30 percent through 2018--or nearly three times the national average for all professions. More than 961,000 held jobs in the field in 2008, according to the BLS.
- Security administrators earned an average salary of anywhere from $46,000 to more than $76,500 per year in May 2010, according to PayScale.com. Much of those figures tend to be based on the administrator's experience, expertise and industry. Meanwhile, the BLS reported the median annual salary of computer systems administrators in general was $66,310 per year in May 2008.
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