What Is an IAM Specialist?

An identity access management (IAM) specialist is a cybersecurity professional who uses IAM tools and techniques to ensure that every network or system user is authorized to access the data they do. IAM specialists monitor for potentially suspicious or malicious users and manage the processes and technologies that assign and verify credentials for each user. 

You may work as an IAM specialist in several career titles spanning IT security, including administrator, engineer, and analyst roles. You’ll likely need to earn a bachelor’s degree and validate your skills with professional experience or certification to enter the field. Learn more about a role as an IAM specialist and the skills, education, and certifications you’ll need to become one. 

What is IAM?

IAM, or identity access management, helps control who has access to your IT resources and what level of access users have. It also helps protect your server, email, network, databases, files, and data from unauthorized users, ultimately helping make your assets more resilient against cyber threats. 

You can use IAM tools to set permissions, allowing employees to access resources on an individual account basis or based on criteria such as job role. For example, you may set different permissions for your marketing staff versus your accounting staff. Or, you might separate permissions for vendors from permissions for customers. 

IAM is a component of a company’s larger cybersecurity strategy. Some companies and organizations look for IAM-specialized professionals like analysts, engineers, and administrators. You can also work with IAM in a cybersecurity role, such as a cybersecurity engineer, or in a security operations center (SOC) with a team of security professionals. Your job tasks may include implementing IAM strategies as an IT administrator or in a similar career. 

What does an IAM specialist do?

As an IAM specialist, you will help organizations develop, implement, and maintain an identity access strategy. You may implement tools like multi-factor authentication or biometrics to help identify users and analyze users’ behavior to monitor for suspicious activity. You may hold several different career titles, including system, network, or database administrator, security analyst, cybersecurity engineer, identity and access management solutions architect, or identity and access engineer. 

In an IAM specialist role, you can typically expect to perform tasks such as: 

• Assessing your company’s identity and access management program to identify vulnerabilities and develop strategies to strengthen IAM processes. 

• Conducting security testing as part of your assessment to identify and mitigate potential exposure points for your organization’s data.

• Monitoring and optimizing identity and access management programs, such as end-user access 

• Implementing new technology and keeping up to date with trends such as machine learning and automation

• Ensuring your organization is in compliance with applicable regulations

What is an IAM specialist salary?

The average base salary for an IAM specialist is $74,295 [1]. However, in a role specializing in identity and access management, you may have many job titles at different levels of responsibility and training, influencing how much you can expect to earn. Explore Glassdoor’s estimates for roles in which you may specialize in IAM, as of April 2025:

• IAM analyst: $91,827

• IAM engineer: $108,589

• IAM administrator: $81,093

• Cybersecurity engineer: $124,412

• SOC analyst: $98,656

• IT administrator: $70,513

• Network administrator: $83,706

• Systems administrator: $92,585

• IAM Cloud operations engineer: $119,304

• Privileged Access Management Analyst: $125,373

IAM specialist job outlook

IAM specialists fall under the broader category of information security analysts, a sector of jobs anticipated to grow by 33 percent over the decade leading up to 2033, a much faster rate than the national average of 4 percent [2].

The need for solutions that keep pace with the evolving threat landscape is one of the driving factors behind the field’s rapid growth. Additionally, in 2024, the worldwide average data breach cost was $4.88 million [3]. Moreover, over 6.8 billion records breaches occurred in more than 2,741 attacks over the 12 months of 2024 [4]. These only include publicly disclosed incidents so the actual figure could be larger. Perhaps these factors are part of why the worldwide global market for cybersecurity is expected to reach $271.91 billion by 2029, growing with a compounded annual growth rate of 7.58 percent from 2025 through 2029 [5]. 

The job growth projections from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, paired with the potential impact and frequency of cyber threats, are positive factors for professionals considering whether cybersecurity will provide a stable career for years to come. 

How to become an IAM specialist

Given the number of job roles you could pursue as an IAM specialist, the precise skills and training you’ll need to enter the field can vary slightly. Like many roles in computer information technology, many roles in cybersecurity generally require a bachelor’s degree. However, you can often also demonstrate your skills in other ways, with many employers loosening their stance on degree requirements, favoring a skills-first approach. Developing specialized skills may help you find roles where you can build your experience in IAM. Then you can use certifications to validate those skills and help you find a role as an IAM specialist. 

Education requirements

The typical education requirement for a cybersecurity specialist is a bachelor’s degree in a computer-related field. Across the field, 56 percent of cybersecurity specialists hold a bachelor’s degree, 23 percent hold an associate degree, and 14 percent have a master’s [6]. As cybersecurity specialists can often enter the field with a more general computer-related degree, you can use additional education opportunities, such as earning certifications, to demonstrate your knowledge in a specialized field like cybersecurity. 

Skills

Demonstrating your skills with IAM can also help you find a role specializing in this branch of cybersecurity. Many employers have faced challenges finding qualified, skilled candidates, leading to a shift toward more skills-based hiring approaches, making your skill set even more critical. 

Some of the skills that may help you succeed in an identity access management job include: 

• Risk management: You may use risk management skills to assess and prioritize vulnerabilities and system updates. 

• Penetration testing and incident response: Depending on your role on the IT team, you may use testing and incident response skills to monitor for and take proactive steps to prevent security threats. 

• Project management: You may use project management skills to plan implementation for new procedures and for projects like ongoing testing and optimization. 

• IAM infrastructure: IAM frameworks and protocols like OAuth that provide the structure for authentication make it possible for users to share their information across different apps. 

• Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML): SAML is a technology that communicates users’ credentials with other applications, helping to simplify the sign-in process while maintaining stringent security standards.

• Authentication, authorization, entitlements, and permissions: You will use these tools to make sure each user is who they say they are and has permission to access the files they do. Examples include two-step verification, multi-factor authentication, and role-based access control. 

• Privileged access management: You can use privileged access management to allow users a custom level of access to protect more sensitive documents. 

Options for IAM certification

Earning a certification in cybersecurity of identity access management can help you validate your skills to employers and expand your credentials beyond a general computer-related degree. Two pathways for IAM certification are rounded cybersecurity certifications, where you will learn a broader range of skills, including IAM, or certifications focused on IAM tools like Microsoft Azure or Red Hat Enterprise Linux. 

A few widely recognized cybersecurity certifications include: 

• CompTIA Security+: This certification from CompTIA requires a prior certification, Network+, and two years of experience working in cybersecurity or as a systems administrator. 

• CompTIA Cybersecurity Analyst (CySA+): The CompTIA CySA+ is the next step of certification up from Security+, requiring both Security+ and Network+ and four years of professional experience. 

• Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP): To qualify for the CISSP exam from ISC2, you will need five years of experience in a cybersecurity role. 

• Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA): To qualify for the CISA exam offered by the ISACA, you will need five years of experience working in a field related to information security auditing, controls, or assurance. 

You can also earn IAM certifications in specific IAM technologies, including: 

• Microsoft Certified: Identity and Access Administrator Associate: This certification validates your skills using Microsoft Azure for identity and access management. 

• Red Hat Certified Specialist in Identity Management: This certification helps demonstrate your identity and access management skills using Red Hat Enterprise Linux and other Red Hat technologies. 

Prepare for a career as an IAM specialist on Coursera

IAM specialists work in cybersecurity roles to help companies manage who has access to their data and at what level. They also develop robust policies to help monitor, test, strengthen, and analyze information security systems. To start gaining experience in a cybersecurity role and qualify for a cybersecurity certification, you can build the skills you’ll need to land a role as a cybersecurity analyst with Professional Certification programs like those offered by IBM, Microsoft, and Google. 

In the Google Cybersecurity Professional Certificate, you can begin developing knowledge of the importance of cybersecurity practices and their impact on organizations, and identify common risks, threats, and vulnerabilities. As you complete the program, you can become more familiar with techniques to mitigate those threats and protect networks, devices, people, and data from unauthorized access and cyberattacks using Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) tools. 

You can also gain a broad understanding of the cybersecurity landscape in the Microsoft Cybersecurity Analyst Professional Certificate, which can help you learn core concepts foundational to security, compliance, and identity solutions, and help you prepare for the industry-recognized Microsoft SC-900 Certification exam.

To learn cybersecurity fundamentals, how to manage database vulnerabilities in operating systems administration and security, how to use cybersecurity tools and techniques to perform penetration testing, respond to incidents, and conduct forensics, consider the IBM Cybersecurity Analyst Professional Certificate. This program can also help you learn to use generative AI to boost your productivity and effectiveness as a cybersecurity analyst.