In-House SOC vs. Managed SOC: What 24/7 Security Really Costs

How Many Analysts Does a 24/7 SOC Actually Need?

Look at it this way. A week contains 168 hours, and one employee working 40 hours per week covers less than a quarter of that schedule, before accounting for vacations, sick leave, training, and holidays. Keeping just one monitoring position occupied around the clock generally requires approximately five full-time employees once time away from work is considered.

Believe us when we say, finding holiday or weekend support when your weekend IT person goes on vacation or has to take emergency leave, can be a nightmare.

A more capable internal SOC may need eight to twelve people or more to support overlapping shifts, investigation, senior escalation, and specialized responsibilities. Even then, headcount alone doesn’t guarantee effective security operations. Someone must maintain detection rules, investigate suspicious identities, understand cloud environments, coordinate containment, and document incidents.

What Does an In-House SOC Cost in 2026?

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics , the median annual wage for information security analysts was $129,180 in May 2025.

BLS employer compensation data from June 2026 shows that wages represented approximately 70% of private-industry compensation costs, with benefits accounting for the remaining 30%.

Applying those figures produces the following illustrative annual personnel costs:

Methodology: BLS national median information security analyst wages divided by 0.70 to estimate wages plus benefits, multiplied by headcount. Rounded estimates, not vendor pricing or a complete operating budget. Actual costs vary with location, seniority, scheduling, and staffing mix.

These figures exclude dedicated security technology, infrastructure, recruiting costs, external assessments, and other operating expenses. A five-person model also does not provide the same capabilities or resilience as a larger SOC.

For many mid-market organizations, the financial question becomes whether maintaining that entire operation internally provides enough additional value to justify its cost.

Why Cybersecurity Skills Gaps Matter More Than Another Hire

The 2026 SANS and GIAC Cybersecurity Workforce Research Report surveyed 947 respondents globally and found that:

• 60% identified skills gaps as the greater workforce challenge, compared with 40% citing insufficient headcount.
• 57% reported delayed projects associated with cybersecurity skills shortages.
• 47% reported slower incident response associated with those gaps.

Separately, ISACA’s 2026 State of Cybersecurity research , based on more than 1,800 cybersecurity professionals, found that 58% believed their organizations’ security teams were understaffed.

The hiring market is changing, too. CyberSN recorded 235,786 U.S. cybersecurity job postings from January through September 2026, down 26.4% from the same period in 2025. That represents the lowest comparable total in its four-year dataset, although posting counts do not establish why employers are hiring less.

The practical takeaway is that simply hiring another employee may not solve the particular capability gap you’re trying to close.

An experienced internal IT professional can understand the organization’s environment exceptionally well while still lacking dedicated expertise in threat hunting, identity compromise, cloud incident response, or advanced security engineering.

But those capabilities have to come from somewhere.

In-House SOC vs. Managed SOC vs. Co-Managed Security

These three operating models solve different problems. None is universally the right answer.

Managed Detection and Response (MDR) is not necessarily equivalent to a fully outsourced SOC. Providers differ in which systems they monitor, what incidents they investigate, and whether they can directly contain threats. A mature enterprise may benefit from operating its own SOC, while a smaller organization without internal security staff may prefer fully managed services.

The internal team retains its knowledge of the environment and business priorities, while the external partner adds the continuous security operation and specialist capabilities that would otherwise require additional hiring. The result depends on clearly documented responsibilities, meaningful service commitments, and practical coordination between both teams.

What to Evaluate Before Your 2027 Security Budget Is Approved

Before approving another analyst position or signing a managed security agreement, leadership should establish five things:

1. Current coverage: Are security events continuously monitored, or only reviewed during business hours?
2. Missing capabilities: Does the organization need additional general IT capacity or specific skills in detection, identity security, cloud security, and incident response?
3. True operating cost: What will staffing, benefits, technology, training, and management actually cost over the next three years?
4. Response responsibility: Who investigates, contains, escalates, and documents incidents, particularly outside normal working hours?
5. Governance continuity: Who owns risk decisions, maintains regulatory evidence, and reports security performance to leadership?

A capable partner should be able to explain those responsibilities without making unrealistic response guarantees or suggesting that external monitoring automatically satisfies regulatory requirements.

Where TorchLight Fits Into the Decision

TorchLight’s Co-Managed IT & Security model is designed to strengthen existing internal teams rather than replace them.

Our Managed Security Services provide 24/7/365 SOC monitoring, alert investigation, identity and endpoint threat detection, and coordinated incident containment and remediation.

For organizations that also need security leadership without adding another executive position, TorchLight’s vCISO services connect technical operations with governance, regulatory priorities, and board-level decisions.

The difference is operational accountability. Monitoring, investigation, response coordination, and leadership visibility need to function as connected responsibilities rather than separate vendors and unresolved tickets.