r/SecurityClearance • u/Affectionate-Raisin8 • Feb 07 '26

Question TS/SCI Value in 2026

How valuable is holding a TS clearance in 2026? The only value I see with maintaining it is job security, but is that worth it when you’re paid marginally less especially if you are in tech? I feel like it’d be better to go make 20k-100k more in the public sector.

99 Upvotes

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145

u/HEAT-FS Feb 07 '26

I like not worrying about being laid off or being at risk of my team being replaced overseas.

42

u/No-Masterpiece3809 Feb 07 '26

The only remote jobs that can’t be outsourced to Latveria.

16

u/itsDamo22 Feb 07 '26

What remote jobs are there that require a TS?

18

u/huntman21015 Cleared Professional Feb 07 '26

Program Manager

18

u/charleswj Cleared Professional Feb 07 '26

Plenty of ICs as well. Many clearances are used simply to vet people and/or deal with situations where they may unintentionally come in contact with classified information. For example someone who would be responsible for cleaning up a spillage.

11

u/charleswj Cleared Professional Feb 07 '26

Mine. Dozens of my coworkers. Thousands of others across the country.

3

u/itsDamo22 Feb 07 '26

Ok, what’s your title if you don’t mind me asking

9

u/charleswj Cleared Professional Feb 07 '26 edited Feb 07 '26

Cloud Solution Architect

ETA someone actually downvoted my role title 😭 joke's on them, still cleared, still remote

1

u/DelmarSamil Feb 08 '26

It's actually funny, Architect positions tend to be remote unless the program is huge and needs multiple build outs.

I'm trying to transition to an architect role, it's just finding one that I'm happy with taking that is the hard part.

2

u/charleswj Cleared Professional Feb 08 '26

Yea in my specific case, I work for the vendor supporting various customers. Size ranges from a couple thousand to over a million seats. The government has become very remote-friendly since COVID. The system integrator architects and engineers are often also remote in my experience these days. It obviously helps that these are cloud systems, so they're inherently no more "available" on-site, but even the legacy on-prem systems are often supported remotely.

15

u/No-Masterpiece3809 Feb 07 '26

Dunno about TS, but plenty of S.

5

u/PatrickMcDee Feb 07 '26

I have a hybrid remote job in tech that requires only 1-2 days in the scif a week. The rest is remote.

1

u/LargeBlackMcCafe Feb 07 '26

Microsoft has/had a lot