UK's top cyber security experts are getting paid more than £10,000 a day

With news of a record numbers of firms having had its systems infiltrated by cyber hackers this year, it's understandable that security is an upmost priority for many businesses and some of them are paying cyber security experts more than £10,000... a day.

That's right, according to a report from recruiting company, Manpower, the UK's best cyber security experts are being paid more than £10,000 a day with many top companies and businesses intent on protecting their customer details from cyber-criminals and hackers. The demand for cyber security jobs is so great due to high-profile attacks to companies such as TalkTalk and Sony that cyber security experts are able to get away with charging such a great fee.

A contractor charging £10,000 a day to protect customer details may seem like a desperate attempt from businesses to keep their customer details safe but if you compare that to the financial losses a company could potentially face from a hacking attempt it's probably not that bad of a situation. TalkTalk's recent attack that resulted in 157,000 customer details being compromised cost the company in the region of £35m and also stinted their reputation. 

"There are millions of cyber attacks every day, with a total cost to the global economy of up to $575 billion a year." said Mark Cahill, MD of Manpower.

The information was collected from a survey carried out by Manpower, which questioned whether companies needed to hire additional workers or reduce the size of their workforce in the coming quarter. The results highlighted a record number of requests for specialists with IT security expertise, a figure that was four times the demand that it saw last year. Due to the demand and limited supply of IT security experts there has been they were able to charge an excessive daily fee and it's something that could possibly continue for the forseeable future to according to Manpower. The government had also doubled it's spending on cyber security to £2bn by 2020 to combat the increasing rise of cyber threats. 

"Some individuals can command daily rates in excess of £3,000, and some top cyber-security specialists can even earn five-figure sums daily," a spokesperson for Manpower said. "With the potential risk to companies so significant and no signs of demand falling, those sky-high salaries look set to continue."

Cyber security was one of Technojobs top IT skills to learn in 2016 and this is just more evidence that it the demand for these skills have never been higher.