Side-by-side distribution
CISO
$287,775
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 35%
- Live roles
- 100
Prompt Engineer
$198,750
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 28.4%
- Live roles
- 88
Highest-paying jobs
CISO
Chief Information Security Officer
Head of Security & Compliance
Head of Security & Compliance
Chief Information Security Officer
Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)
Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)
Chief Information Security Officer
Field Chief Information Security Officer (Field CISO)
Head of Product Security
Highest-paying jobs
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Machine Learning Engineer, LLM Evals & Observability
Principal LLM Inference Engineer
Staff Attack Engineer, AI/LLM
Staff ML/LLM Ops Engineer
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Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
|
Masabi
|
$482,308 | 3 |
|
Harvey
|
$317,500 | 2 |
|
Hippo Insurance
|
$313,750 | 2 |
NexHealth
|
$180,000 | 2 |
| DR DFO Referrals | $530,000 | 1 |
|
Rain
|
$524,500 | 1 |
|
Compass
|
$375,000 | 1 |
|
Vanta
|
$339,500 | 1 |
Zscaler
Five9
CISO salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| New York | $295,000 | 11 |
| San Francisco | $227,500 | 9 |
| London | $222,500 | 3 |
| Seattle | $180,000 | 3 |
Prompt Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $250,000 | 7 |
| New York | $197,500 | 3 |
CISO vs Prompt Engineer: which pays more?
The median for CISO is $287,775 per year (typically $224,375–$319,375), versus $198,750 for Prompt Engineer ($180,000–$243,238). That puts CISO about 45% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so CISO and Prompt Engineer are compared on equal terms regardless of the currency each role was originally posted in. Only roles that publish a salary range feed the medians; numbers refresh every few hours as new roles post and older ones close, so this comparison reflects the market right now rather than a fixed survey. Use it as a directional benchmark when weighing one path against the other.