When a Letterkenny technology firm won its first large public sector contract in 2024, the tender required evidence of a formal cybersecurity governance structure, including a named security lead with CISO-level credentials. The firm had twelve staff, a capable IT provider, and no dedicated security person. Hiring a full-time CISO at the market rate of €100,000 or more per year was not a realistic option. They engaged a vCISO on a monthly retainer instead, had the governance documentation in place within six weeks, and successfully passed the procurement security review. The retainer cost them €2,200 per month — roughly one quarter of what a full-time hire would have cost.
That experience is increasingly typical for growing Irish SMEs. The vCISO model — a seasoned cybersecurity professional engaged on a flexible, part-time basis — has moved from a niche arrangement to a mainstream solution for businesses that need strategic security leadership without the overhead of a permanent executive.
What You Are Actually Buying
A vCISO is not an IT support provider or a managed security service. The role is strategic: developing your security roadmap, managing your risk posture, ensuring regulatory compliance, briefing your board or leadership team, and acting as the named security accountable person your suppliers, customers, and insurers increasingly expect to see. The NCSC Ireland has published guidance on the role of security leadership in Irish organisations and consistently points to the absence of dedicated security governance as a primary factor in poor incident outcomes.[^1]
When you engage a vCISO, you are buying a defined number of senior hours applied to your business each month, with continuity of knowledge and a relationship rather than a ticket queue.
Are you paying for reactive IT support when what you actually need is a security strategy? Book a free 20-minute strategy call — we can tell you within the hour whether a vCISO retainer is the right model for your business.
The Three Engagement Models and Their Costs
The Irish vCISO market has settled around three main pricing structures, each suited to a different type of business need.
A monthly retainer is the most common model for ongoing security leadership. You pay a fixed fee for a defined scope — typically covering regular strategic reviews, policy development, risk management, staff awareness oversight, and board or leadership reporting. In the Irish market, retainers start from around €1,500 per month for a smaller SME with a focused scope, and typically range to €5,000 or more per month for more complex businesses or those with NIS2 obligations. For a business with 20 to 50 staff and straightforward regulatory requirements, the realistic range is €1,800 to €3,500 per month.
A project-based engagement suits businesses with a specific, time-bounded objective — achieving ISO 27001 certification, conducting a risk assessment before a tender, or building an incident response programme from scratch. Project costs in Ireland typically run from €5,000 for a focused gap analysis to €25,000 or more for a full certification readiness programme, depending on scope and current maturity.
Hourly or advisory-on-demand access suits businesses that have some internal security capability and need occasional senior input — a second opinion on a vendor proposal, preparation for a board presentation, or advice on a specific incident. The going rate for senior vCISO advisory time in Ireland is €150 to €300 per hour, though this model is generally less cost-effective for businesses that need more than a few hours per month.
What Drives the Price
Several factors affect where in these ranges your engagement will fall. Business complexity matters significantly — a professional services firm with 25 staff in Donegal has different requirements from a healthcare provider in Dublin with 200 staff and NIS2 obligations. Industry matters too: regulated sectors such as financial services, healthcare, and government supply chains carry higher compliance overhead. Your current security maturity also influences cost — a business starting from nothing requires more upfront investment in policy development and baseline controls than one with an established programme that simply needs senior governance oversight.
The Data Protection Commission expects organisations to appoint someone with clear responsibility for data protection and security governance.[^3] Where a dedicated Data Protection Officer is not required, the vCISO often fulfils this accountability role in practice.
The Cost Comparison That Matters
A full-time CISO in Ireland commands a base salary of €95,000 to €130,000 depending on experience and sector, plus employer PRSI, pension contributions, and benefits that add 25 to 30 percent on top. Factor in recruitment fees, which typically run to 15 to 20 percent of first year salary, and the effective first-year cost of a full-time CISO is well over €160,000. For many Irish SMEs, that investment is simply not proportionate to the business size.
A vCISO retainer at €2,500 per month costs €30,000 per year — less than a fifth of that figure — and delivers experienced security leadership without the recruitment risk, notice periods, or employment obligations. An Garda Síochána's National Cyber Crime Bureau consistently notes that a lack of security governance, rather than a lack of technical tools, is a primary factor in why Irish SME incidents escalate rather than being contained.[^2]
The vCISO model was designed precisely for the gap between "we need security leadership" and "we cannot afford a full-time CISO."
What to Do Next
Three steps help you decide whether a vCISO is the right investment for your business right now:
Define what you actually need. Write down the security outcomes your business needs to achieve in the next twelve months — regulatory compliance, supplier audit readiness, cyber insurance qualification, or a reduction in your incident risk. A vCISO engagement should be scoped around those specific outcomes, not a vague notion of "better security."
Request a scoped proposal from two or three providers. Ask each one to propose a specific scope, deliverables, and monthly hours alongside the price. Compare like for like — hours per month, what is included in the retainer, and what is charged extra.
Ask about the first 90 days. A good vCISO engagement produces tangible outputs in the first three months: a current-state assessment, a prioritised roadmap, and at least one significant improvement to your security posture. If a provider cannot tell you what the first 90 days will look like, that is worth factoring into your decision.
Related Reading
- What Is a vCISO and Why Do Irish SMEs Need One?
- vCISO vs Full-Time CISO: Cost Comparison for Irish SMEs
- vCISO Transform Cybersecurity in 90 Days
[^1]: NCSC Ireland — Advice for Organisations: https://www.ncsc.gov.ie/advice-for-organisations/ [^2]: An Garda Síochána — Cyber Crime: https://www.garda.ie/en/crime/cyber-crime/ [^3]: Data Protection Commission: https://www.dataprotection.ie
Pragmatic Security — Cybersecurity advisory for Irish businesses. Based in Donegal, Ireland. CISA, CISSP, CISM certified advisors.