Recruiting watchers for the virtual walls: the state of cybersecurity hiring

Due to a persistent cybersecurity talent shortage, there have been major efforts to increase the supply of cybersecurity workers. But demand has increased as well, which means cybersecurity talent is still expensive and hard to find. Federal data shows the number of postsecondary programs in key cybersecurity areas has increased 33 per cent, and the number of conferrals rose 44 per cent between 2013-17. Yet one key indicator of supply and demand, the ratio of currently employed cybersecurity workers to job openings, has hardly budged since 2015. In other words, the pool of available talent has remained proportionally the same. Based on a database of nearly one billion current and historical job postings, the authors have built a definition of the cybersecurity job market that includes all job openings with cybersecurity-related job titles, skills or certifications. The key findings from this report include: (1) the number of cybersecurity job postings has grown 94 per cent since 2013, compared to only 30 per cent for IT positions overall; (2) cybersecurity jobs account for 13 per cent of all information technology jobs, take longer to fill and pay a greater salary; (3) for most IT workers, cybersecurity is one among many responsibilities rather than a dedicated role; (4) for each cybersecurity opening, there was a pool of only 2.3 employed cybersecurity workers for employers to recruit; (5) demand for automation skills in cybersecurity roles has risen and; (6) public cloud security and knowledge of the Internet of Things are projected to be the fastest-growing skills in cybersecurity over the next five years.

Edited excerpts from publication.

Burning Glass Technologies has been tracking the cybersecurity job market since 2013. Two supporting 'job market intelligence' reports, one from 2014 and one from 2015, accompany this report. Show less