Security guard pay rates by state and role
Security guard pay rates start at the BLS median of $18.29 an hour. Where to pull your own state figure, what moves a rate, and how it sets your bill rate.
Security guard pay rates swing hard between markets, so a national average will not price a contract or set a wage. What you need is the published median, the state table underneath it, and the four things that move a rate off it.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts median security guard pay at $18.29 an hour as of May 2025. State and metro figures come from the BLS wage table for the occupation, not from a blog. Everything past those two sources is your own payroll, your own job postings and your own exit interviews.
Any hourly range you read online that is not tied to a BLS table is somebody's impression. This post gives you the one published figure and the table to look your own state up in, rather than a grid of numbers nobody can source.
Where to get real numbers for your state
Two places, both free, both official.
- The occupation page. The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook entry for security guards carries the national median and the employment projection.
- The state and metro table. The BLS occupational employment and wage estimates for security guards break the same survey down by state and metropolitan area, with percentiles. Look up your own state and your own metro there.
Two cautions on reading it. The survey lags the market by a year or more, so a fast-moving metro will be under-reported. And the state figure blends armed and unarmed, day and night, hospital and storage yard, so the percentile spread inside a state matters more than the state median.
What actually moves the number
Four things set a guard's rate, and they stack.
Where the post is. State minimum wage sets the floor, and security has to clear it by enough to beat the other jobs a candidate could take. Cost of living pushes from the same direction. So does competition: where several companies chase the same licensed pool, or where a market is thick with hospitals, campuses and corporate offices that buy contract security, rates climb.
What the post involves. Armed work is the biggest single jump, because it carries extra licensing, extra training and extra liability. Credentials beyond the basic guard card, CPR, fire safety, anything industry-specific, add on top.
When and where the shift falls. Overnights usually carry a differential. Weekends vary by employer. A post nobody wants, a rough neighborhood, a difficult client or a route that is hard on the legs costs a premium or it does not get filled. Corporate sites tend to pay better than retail or residential, partly because of the work and partly because the client will wear it.
Who is standing there. Experience counts, certifications count, and so does simply turning up. In an industry with this much churn a guard with a clean attendance record is worth paying to keep. Bilingual guards and guards with medical training can cover more posts, which is worth money to you.
If turnover is what is driving your wage question, money is only half the answer. What actually keeps guards from quitting covers the rest.
Why the same state can hold two different markets
State medians hide the split that matters to you. A large metro with a dense commercial core and a rural county two hours away are not the same labour market, and the state number sits somewhere between them without describing either.
That is why the metro table is the one to read. Pull your own metropolitan area, then look at the 25th and 75th percentiles rather than the median alone. The gap between them is roughly the room you have to position in.
Licensing rules shape supply too, and they differ sharply by state. See California, Texas and New York for what a guard has to do before they can take the post at all.
Setting your own rate
Do the research rather than guessing what the company down the road pays.
Then decide where you want to sit. Below market, you staff posts with whoever has no better option and you keep re-staffing them. At market, you are interchangeable with every other employer. Above market, you get better applicants and lower turnover, but the margin has to come from a higher bill rate or a tighter operation.
Wages are also not the whole offer. Health cover, even basic, separates you from competitors offering none. Paid time off, retirement contributions, a route to promotion, and above all a schedule a person can plan a life around all move the decision. So does the post itself: guards leave bad sites for the same money somewhere pleasant. There is more in building a benefits package that retains people.
What the wage does to your bill rate
The wage is the start of the cost, not the cost.
Payroll burden sits on top: employer payroll taxes, workers' compensation, unemployment insurance and whatever benefits you offer. Your own burden percentage depends on your class code, your claims history and your benefit design, so calculate it from last year's payroll rather than borrowing a range. Then overhead: premises, kit, supervision, admin. Profit is what is left.
Work your own example with your own numbers. Say you pay $18 and bill $28. If your burden works out at 30 percent, that takes $5.40, leaving $4.60 an hour. If your overhead runs $3 an hour, your margin is $1.60, under 6 percent of revenue. One unplanned overtime shift eats it. That is the whole argument for getting overtime under control before you chase a higher bill rate.
The multiplier you can hold depends on the work. Commodity commercial and government contracts carry thin ones. Armed, specialized or genuinely demanding posts carry more. Rather than adopting a published multiplier, build yours up from your measured burden and overhead per hour and check that it clears the margin you need.
Key Takeaways
- BLS median security guard pay was $18.29 an hour in May 2025. That is the sourced national figure.
- Get state and metro numbers from the BLS wage table, and read the percentile spread, not the median.
- Armed work, overnights and hard posts all carry a premium, sized by your local market.
- Benefits and schedule stability move retention as much as the hourly rate does.
- Calculate your own burden from payroll. Do not price a contract off a borrowed percentage.
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