High paying security and protective service jobs in South Dakota with no degree

The best paid security and protective service occupations in South Dakota that require no bachelor's degree — a high school diploma, a certificate, or an associate's degree is the typical entry. This is the narrowest cut on the site, so it is also the shortest list: where a field has only two or three such occupations, there is no page at all rather than a page pretending otherwise.

Cost of living: prices in South Dakota run 11.4% below the national average (2024), so a South Dakota salary is worth about 1.13× its face value in national terms. That scales every wage here by the same factor — it changes what the numbers mean, not their order. To see where a job pays a real premium, use jobs that pay more in South Dakota.

Wages: BLS OEWS, May 2025 · Cost of living: BEA regional price parities, 2024

Ranked among the occupations common enough to employ roughly one in every three thousand workers in South Dakota. The rarer ones are real jobs — but a 1,190-person occupation at the top of a list answers a different question than the one most readers are asking.