Career Escape Map

Alternative careers for security guards, mapped by transferable work

Most lists of alternative careers are somebody’s opinion. This one is built from the O*NET 30.3 Database: occupations that share the skills, knowledge, and work activities recorded for security guards, with the overlap shown rather than asserted.

What jobs can former security guards do?

Occupational data does not point security guards at one alternative career. It maps 9 occupations that share measurable requirements with security guards, and they answer different questions: the closest on transferable skills is Coroners at 33% overlap; the closest on day-to-day work is Correctional Officers and Jailers at 97%; the largest published wage step is First-Line Supervisors of Police and Detectives at $106,040 against $38,020. Which of those matters depends on what you want to keep and what you are willing to change.

Public Safety and Security is what carries over furthest, rated important for 5 of the 9, while Management of Personnel Resources is what most often has to be evidenced from scratch. 7 need no additional typical education, Correctional Officers and Jailers and Public Safety Telecommunicators among them; the widest study step is Coroners, 4 BLS levels above security guards; published medians run from $36,560 for Recreation Workers to $106,040 for First-Line Supervisors of Police and Detectives.

Starting fromSecurity GuardO*NET Job Zone 2

Built from Security Guards.

Career change

A different broad occupational field from the one you work in now, by SOC major group. A change of field in the classification, which is not the same as a change of working environment.

Related field

A different occupation inside the same broad occupational family as your current work. Related work, not a step up: the classification says nothing about seniority.

Security Guard → Correctional Officers and Jailers

Same Job ZoneDirectly related in O*NET

Guard inmates in penal or rehabilitative institutions in accordance with established regulations and procedures. May guard prisoners in transit between jail, courtroom, prison, or other point. Includes deputy sheriffs and police who spend the majority of their time guarding prisoners in correctional institutions.

73% weighted overlap. Of everything O*NET rates as important for either occupation, weighted so that distinctive work counts for more than work common to most jobs, this share is important for both.

What it takes to cross

Typical entry education: High school diploma or equivalent; No additional education typically expected. Your field: High school diploma or equivalent.
Preparation level: Similar preparation level; O*NET Job Zone 2, against 2 for your field.
Experience and training: Work experience commonly required: None. Typical on-the-job training: Moderate-term on-the-job training.
Relationship: Directly related in O*NET data. Same occupational field as your current work.

What carries over

Work activities 34 shared

Staffing Organizational Units
Monitoring and Controlling Resources
Operating Vehicles, Mechanized Devices, or Equipment
Assisting and Caring for Others
Guiding, Directing, and Motivating Subordinates
Performing Administrative Activities

Knowledge 10 shared

Telecommunications
Law and Government
Psychology
Public Safety and Security
Administrative
Administration and Management

Transferable skills 3 shared

Social Perceptiveness
Coordination
Judgment and Decision Making

Essential skills 5 shared

Reading Comprehension
Monitoring
Speaking
Critical Thinking
Active Listening

Where the work changes

Important for correctional officers and jailers, not for your current occupation. This is what you would need to be able to evidence.

Transferable skills

Negotiation
Persuasion
Instructing
Service Orientation
Complex Problem Solving
Time Management

Essential skills

Learning Strategies
Active Learning
Writing

Occupational overlap describes the work, not you. It cannot tell you whether your particular experience matches a specific opening. Paste a real correctional officers and jailers job description and compare it with the evidence in your own resume.

Already comparing several target jobs? Run your Job Search MRI

Career exit snapshot: Security Guard

Occupations mapped: 9
O*NET Job Zone: 2
National median wage, 2025: $38,020
Capability that transfers most often: Public Safety and Security
Requirement most often newly needed: Management of Personnel Resources
Closest on transferable skills: Coroners (33%)
Closest on day-to-day work: Correctional Officers and Jailers (97%)
No additional typical education: 7 of 9
Same Job Zone or lower: 4 of 9

Source. Job Zone and requirement ratings: O*NET 30.3. Wage, projections, openings and entry education: BLS Employment Projections Table 1.2, projections 2025–35, wage year 2025. Verified 2026-09-02. RoleSprint-derived. Overlap percentages and the destination comparisons are calculated by RoleSprint from those published values.

Career options for former security guards, grouped by what you want

There is no best option, only a best option for a stated goal. Each group below is one goal, and the occupations in it are the ones the occupational data puts there.

Occupations appear in more than one group where they qualify for more than one. That repetition is a fact about security guards: most occupations have fewer genuinely distinct directions than a list of ten suggests.

If you want to keep using the same skills

The occupations whose transferable-skills requirements overlap most with security guards, measured from O*NET importance ratings.

A high overlap describes the work, not an employer's willingness to accept your background as evidence of it.

If you want the day to look similar

The occupations that share the most work activities with security guards — what a person actually spends the day doing.

Similar activities are not a similar job. Pace, autonomy, caseload and who you answer to are in no occupational dataset.

If you want to keep using what you already know

The occupations whose subject-matter knowledge requirements overlap most with security guards.

Knowledge overlap is usually the gap formal study closes, and it moves independently of skills overlap.

If you want to avoid more formal study

Occupations BLS records as typically entered with the same level of education as security guards, or less.

Typical is not required. It describes what most entrants hold, not what any employer demands, and it says nothing about licensing.

If you want a higher national median wage

Occupations whose BLS national median annual wage is above the $38,020 recorded for security guards, wage year 2025.

The median is the midpoint for people already in that occupation. It is not a salary you would be offered, and entrants typically start below it.

If you want a stronger employment projection

Occupations BLS projects to grow fastest between 2025 and 2035.

A projection is for the occupation, not for you. Fast growth often means more competition, and a flat occupation can hire constantly through turnover.

If you want the largest number of openings

Occupations with the most projected annual average openings, 2025 to 2035.

Openings mostly replace people who leave rather than representing new roles, and an opening is not an offer.

The same question, asked the ways people ask it

What jobs can former security guards do?

O*NET and BLS data map 9 occupations that share measurable requirements with security guards. The three closest on transferable skills are Coroners, Medical Assistants and Public Safety Telecommunicators. They are not interchangeable: they differ in how much retraining they imply, what they pay, and how much of the day would feel familiar.

What careers use security guard skills?

Measured against O*NET importance ratings, Coroners shares 33% of its transferable-skills requirements with security guards, followed by Medical Assistants at 33%. The capability doing most of that work is Public Safety and Security. Overlap describes the occupations, not whether an employer will read your record as proof of it.

Can security guards change careers without going back to school?

BLS records 7 of the 9 mapped occupations as typically entered with the same level of education as security guards or less, including Public Safety Telecommunicators and Residential Advisors. "Typical" describes what most entrants hold rather than what any employer requires, and it says nothing about licensing, which is often the real gate.

What can security guards do that pays more?

Against the $38,020 national median BLS records for security guards, First-Line Supervisors of Police and Detectives has the highest published median in this map at $106,040, with Coroners at $80,730. A median is the midpoint for people already in an occupation, so it is not an offer and not a starting salary.

Which of these occupations is growing?

BLS projects Medical Assistants to grow 12.9% between 2025 and 2035, the fastest of the 9 mapped from security guards, ahead of Recreation Workers at 4.3%. Growth is a forecast about an occupation's size, not a measure of how easy it is to be hired into it.

What is the hardest part of leaving security guard work?

Across these 9 occupations the requirement that most often has to be newly evidenced is Management of Personnel Resources. Even the closest destination, Coroners, is a genuine change rather than a lateral step. The obstacle is usually not plausibility — it is that one requirement with no obvious proof in a security guard record.

People also search for this as alternative careers for security guards, jobs for former security guards, careers for former security guards, second careers for security guards, among other wordings. Those are the same question, so they are answered here rather than on separate pages.

What the work already proves, and what would be new

Carries over most often

Public Safety and Security

Rated important for security guards and for more of these destination occupations than any other single capability. It is the thing least likely to need re-learning, and the thing most worth evidencing explicitly on a resume, because an employer reading a security guard title will not infer it.

Most often has to be newly evidenced

Management of Personnel Resources

Rated important for more of these destinations than for security guards. This is usually the real obstacle: not that the move is implausible, but that this one requirement has no obvious proof in a security guard record.

Compare all 9 side by side in the Opportunity Atlas Test your record against one real opening

Take one move at a time

Each destination has its own page working through what specifically carries over, what would be new, and how the published preparation compares for that one move.

It depends what you are optimising for

Ask a different question of the same map and a different occupation comes out on top. Each of these leads on one dimension only.

There is no combined score behind any of this, and there will not be: measured across every transition published here, how much your skills carry over and how much your knowledge carries over are close to unrelated, so any single ranking would just be a set of weights nobody can defend.

Compare every destination on all of these at once

How to read this map

Three things on each destination are worth understanding before you act on any of it.

Weighted overlap

Of everything O*NET rates as important for either occupation, the share important for both. Weighted so that distinctive work counts for more than work common to nearly every job.

Job Zone

O*NET's published preparation level, 1 to 5. A destination one zone up usually means an extra credential or licence. Destinations more than one zone away are not shown.

Where the work changes

Requirements important for the destination and not for your current occupation. This is the part you would have to be able to evidence, and it is usually the real obstacle.

What this map cannot tell you

The honest boundary matters more than the map.

It cannot tell you whether you personally qualify for a specific security guard-to-something opening. Occupational data describes work, not candidates.
It is not a transition probability, a fit score, or a prediction about hiring. No number here should be read as a chance of getting a job.
It does not show how often people actually make each move. O*NET records occupational requirements, not labour-market flows, and we do not have flow data.
It does not account for licensing you may already hold, geography, pay, or whether you would enjoy the work.

How these maps are built

Other Career Escape Maps

All Career Escape Maps

This page includes information from the O*NET 30.3 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. RoleSprint has modified all or some of this information. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications. Analysis generated 2026-09-02 from the O*NET 30.3 Database. Entry education, work experience, and on-the-job training are reproduced from BLS Employment Projections Table 5.4, Education and training assignments by detailed occupation, 2024, published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.